by
Damien F. Mackey
“And the Assyrian will fall by a sword not of
man,
and a sword not of man will devour him”.
Isaiah 31:8
‘But the Lord
Almighty has foiled them
by the hand of a woman’.
Judith
16:5
It
is one of the most famous incidents of ancient history, the destruction of king
Sennacherib of Assyria’s massive army of 185,000, seemingly all in the one single
night.
Yet
no one, either ancient or modern, seems to be able to agree upon when, how, or where it happened.
Biblical testimonies
Biblically,
the incident is recorded in 2 Kings and 2 Chronicles, and in the Book of Isaiah
(chapters 36-37).
And,
for those using a Catholic Bible, it is summarily recounted in Sirach (48:18-21):
In [Hezekiah’s] days
Sennacherib invaded the country;
he sent his commander and departed;
he shook his fist against Zion,
and made great boasts in his arrogance.
Then their hearts were shaken and their hands trembled,
and they were in anguish, like women in labor.
But they called upon the Lord who is merciful,
spreading out their hands toward him.
The Holy One quickly heard them from heaven,
and delivered them through Isaiah.
The Lord struck down the camp of the Assyrians,
and his angel wiped them out.
he sent his commander and departed;
he shook his fist against Zion,
and made great boasts in his arrogance.
Then their hearts were shaken and their hands trembled,
and they were in anguish, like women in labor.
But they called upon the Lord who is merciful,
spreading out their hands toward him.
The Holy One quickly heard them from heaven,
and delivered them through Isaiah.
The Lord struck down the camp of the Assyrians,
and his angel wiped them out.
and
also in 1 Maccabees, where Judas Maccabeus prays (7:41-42): ‘O
Lord, when they that were sent by king Sennacherib blasphemed thee, an angel
went out, and slew of them a hundred and eighty-five thousand: Even so destroy
this army in our sight to day, and let the rest know that he hath spoken ill
against thy sanctuary: and judge thou him according to his wickedness’. (Cf. 2
Maccabees 15:22-23).
And
again, according to this present article, the whole incident is described in minute
detail in the Book of Judith that also features in the Catholic Bible.
Non-Biblical testimonies
Josephus
tells of the steep decline and fall of king Sennacherib (Antiquities, Bk. 10, #’s 4-5), with reference also to Herodotus and
Berosus:
Now concerning this Sennacherib Herodotus also
says, in the second book of his Histories, “How this King came against the
Egyptian King, who was the Priest of Vulcan: and that as he was besieging
Pelusium, he broke up the siege on the following occasion. This Egyptian Priest
prayed to God, and God heard his prayer; and sent a judgment upon the Arabian
King:” but in this Herodotus was mistaken, when he called this King not King of
the Assyrians, but of the Arabians. (3)
For he saith, that “A multitude of mice gnawed to pieces in one night both the
bows, and the rest of the armour of the Assyrians: and that it was on that
account that the King, when he had no bows left, drew off his army from
Pelusium.” And Herodotus does indeed give us this history. Nay and Berosus, who
wrote of the affairs of Chaldea, makes mention of this King Sennacherib; and
that he ruled over the Assyrians, and that he made an expedition against all
Asia and Egypt; and says thus. (4)
5. “Now when Sennacherib was returning from his
Egyptian war to Jerusalem, he found his army under Rabshakeh his general in
danger [by a plague, for] God had sent a pestilential distemper upon his army:
and on the very first night of the siege an hundred fourscore and five
thousand, with their captains and generals, were destroyed.
So the King was in a great dread, and in a
terrible agony at this calamity; and being in great fear for his whole army, he
fled with the rest of his forces to his own Kingdom, and to his city Nineveh.
And when he had abode there a little while, he was treacherously assaulted, and
died by the hands of his elder sons (5)
Adrammelech and Sarasar: and was slain in his own temple, which was called Araske.
….
[End of quotes]
Comparisons
can arise between Sennacherib and Xerxes: “Like Xerxes in
Greece, Sennacherib never recovered from the shock of the disaster in Judah. He
made no more expeditions against either the Southern Levant or Egypt”:
“Like
the Persian Xerxes, [Sennacherib] was weak and vainglorious, cowardly under
reverse, and cruel and boastful in success”:
And
such comparison is most interesting, given Emmet John Sweeney’s series of likenesses
between Xerxes and Sennacherib in his book, The
Ramessides, Medes, and Persians (pp. 129-131).
Glimpses of Judith in BC Antiquity
If
Judith really had done, historically, all that is attributed to her - whether
or not it actually pertained to Sennacherib’s army, or to some other foreign
army and era - then we should expect her marvellous intervention to be
celebrated in the literature, too, of the various other (non-Israelite) nations,
albeit most likely in a garbled form.
If,
as according to Judith 16:21, 23: “She was honored for the
rest of her life all throughout the land. …. She became
increasingly famous and grew old in her husband’s house, reaching the advanced
age of 105”, then we should expect the heroine Judith to have made a big impact
in the ancient world. And I think that that is what we find.
Here
I give only a few of many possible examples, having written previously:
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
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
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?
The When, How
and Where
of the amazing Book of Judith
When?
A
key figure towards an identification of the era of Judith has to be this king
(Judith 1:1): “… King Nebuchadnezzar was ruling over the
Assyrians from his capital city of Nineveh”, because, apart from a location
(“Assyrians”, “Nineveh”), he is also given a regnal date (v. 5): “In the
twelfth year of his reign King Nebuchadnezzar went to war …”.
Despite
some key details, however, this king has been identified with, among others,
Ashurbanipal; Artaxerxes III Ochus; Antiochus IV ‘Epiphanes; Antiochus VII
‘Sidetes’; Tigranes the Great.
And
a colleague is currently trying to convince me that Judith’s “Nebuchadnezzar”
was Nebuchednezzar II ‘the Great’. The latter, I would deem to be about the
worst candidate that one could opt for, for “Nebuchadnezzar” (except for the
name fit), given Nebuchednezzar II’s complete mastery over Israel and Judah,
even to the point of having completely destroyed Jerusalem and its Temple.
The
writer of Judith would have found it difficult to have written, with
Nebuchednezzar II in mind (Judith 16:25): “As long as Judith lived, and for
many years after her death, no one dared to threaten the people of Israel”.
Sargon
II “ruling over the Assyrians from his capital city of Nineveh”
(he would later move to his brand new capital of Dur-Sharrukin) is the only ruler
who can possibly fit Judith 1, he (i) having waged a successful eastern war in
his regnal Year 12, and (ii) being in approximate chronological range for a
100,000+ (the figures vary in versions of Judith) Assyrian army debacle,
Sennacherib’s.
Moreover,
in my revision, Sargon II was
Sennacherib.
This
accords with the testimony of the Book of Tobit, which has “Shalmaneser”
succeeded by his son “Sennacherib”, with no Sargon in between (Tobit 1:15): “When
Shalmaneser died, his son Sennacherib succeeded him as emperor”.
And
this fusion solves a host of chronological problems.
It
also accounts for why Sennacherib never bothers about the new Dur-Sharrukin (he
does, as Sargon), and why Sargon seems to neglect Nineveh (he does not, as
Sennacherib). And why Sargon’s records are numbered by regnal year, whilst
Sennacherib numbers by campaign.
Yet
the pairs of records perfectly intermesh over more than a decade.
Each
is just the one side of the same coin.
Sargon
has a lot to say about “Ashdod”, which is Lachish, whereas Sennacherib leaves
only a pictorial record of Lachish.
{The
coastal Ashdod is distinguished by the Assyrians as Ashdudimmu, ‘Ashdod-by the Sea’:
“Ashdod, Gimtu [Gath?], Ashdudimmu
[Ashdod-by-the-Sea], I besieged”: Sargon II}
Names
confused in Book of Judith
The
Book of Judith has, in its present form, a confusion of names – this being one
of the reasons, perhaps, for the rejection of it from having canonical status by
Jews and Protestants.
Actually,
though, according to my revised scheme of things, Sargon II/Sennacherib the
Assyrian was a “Nebuchadnezzar”, as ruler
of Babylon. He was Nebuchednezzar I (c. 1100 BC, conventional dating).
Nebuchednezzar I was a contemporary of Merodach-baladan I, whom I would
identify with Merodach-baladan II, the “Arphaxad” of the Book of Judith.
Despite
that I have a Nebuchednezzar name for Sargon II/Sennacherib, I would attribute
the “Nebuchadnezzar” given for an Assyrian king in the Book of Judith to a
confusion of names, for, according to Dr. Stephanie Dalley (The Mystery of the Hanging Garden of Babylon, 2013), it was common in
antiquity for Sennacherib and Nebuchednezzar II to be confused, and also for
Nineveh and Babylon to be confused.
According
to Dr. Dalley, the famous Hanging Gardens of antiquity were Sennacherib’s, in
Nineveh, and not Nebuchednezzar II’s, in Babylon.
But
there are other important characters also in the Book of Judith - apart from
the king of Nineveh and his Chaldean alliance opponent - who need to be taken
into consideration.
I
refer to, for instance, the high priest Joakim (var. Eliakim); Achior (var.
Ahikar); and Uzziah son of Micah, chief magistrate of Bethulia, and described
to in the Douay version of the Book of Judith as both “the
prince of Judah” and “the prince of the people of Israel”.
Then there is Judith herself with a Simeonite genealogy stretching
back some 16 generations (Judith 8:1-2): “She 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”.
The
pair, Salamiel and Sarasadai are found as Simeonite contemporaries of Moses, as
Shelumiel and Zurishaddai in Numbers 1:6.
And
we must not forget “Holofernes” himself.
When? did
these characters (Joakim/Eliakim; Achior/Ahikar; Uzziah; Judith;
and “Holofernes”) live?
All,
it seems, during the reigns of kings Hezekiah and Sennacherib.
Eliakim
Eliakim,
foretold to replace Shebna in Isaiah’s Oracle (22:15-25), was king Hezekiah’s
go-to man by the time that Sennacherib had sent up his Rabshakeh to lambast the Jews (Isaiah 36:3): “Eliakim
son of Hilkiah … Shebna … and Joah … went out to him [the Rabshakeh]”.
I
deliberately omitted here Eliakim’s office, which is generally translated as major-domo, or “palace administrator”,
whereas the Vulgate properly gives the office to which he is to be raised,
Shebna’s office, as that of high priest (Isaiah 22:15) … qui habitat in tabernaculo, ad Sobnam, praepositum temple …. (Tabernacle, Temple)
The
out of favour Shebna was, I believe, the same as king Ahaz’s sycophantic high
priest, Uriah (2 Kings 16:10-11), and was, afterwards, Hezekiah’s high priest,
Azariah, a Zadokite
(2 Chronicles 31:10).
He,
obviously a powerful man, who boasted of his “chariots” (Isaiah 22:18), had probably
ruled the strong fort of “Ashdod”, which is Lachish, but was deposed, as Isaiah
predicted.
Though
he had been pro-Assyrian at the time of king Ahaz, he must have swung over in
Hezekiah’s time to embrace the prevailing pro-Egyptian mood (much to the
chagrin of Isaiah). And so the Assyrian king Sargon II replaced Azariah (= Shebna)
with his brother, Eliakim (the Joakim of the Book of Judith):
“Azuri [Azariah] king of Ashdod, not to bring tribute his
heart was set, and to the kings in his neighbourhood proposals of rebellion
against Assyria he sent. Because of the evil he did, over the men of his land I
changed his lordship. Akhimiti [Eliakim] his own brother, to sovereignty over
them I appointed”.
Compare
Isaiah 20:1: “In the year that the Turtan [supreme commander], sent by Sargon king of Assyria, came to
Ashdod and attacked and captured it …”.
Incidentally,
this was the only known mention of the name “Sargon” down through the
centuries, until modern archaeology uncovered him, though remaining unsure of
who he was.
A
further indication to me that the man, Sargon, stands badly in need of an alter ego.
In
Sennacherib’s records, Akhimiti is
called Mitinti.
The
capture of Ashdod was the lead-up to the great western campaign soon to be
waged by Sennacherib. It was conducted by the king’s Turtan, because the king himself was now preoccupied with his
darling project of building Dur Sharrukin. But the king would lead the next
campaign, in which the Assyrians would successfully capture Judah and
Jerusalem.
This
campaign gets telescoped with the ill-fated campaign later in the reign, the
rout of the 185,000, but the two clearly need to be separated. For, all the
things that the prophet Isaiah promised king Hezekiah would not happen to
Jerusalem following Sennacherib’s blasphemy did
happen during that early western campaign (Isaiah 37:33): “Therefore thus
says the LORD concerning the king of Assyria: He shall not come into this city
or shoot an arrow there or come before it with a shield or cast up a siege
mound against it”.
Sennacherib
appropriately boasted:
As for him, Hezekiah, fear of my
lordly brilliance overwhelmed him and, after my (departure), he had the
auxiliary forces (and) his elite troops whom he had brought inside to
strengthen the city Jerusalem, his royal city, and who had provided support,
(along with) 30 talents of gold, 800 talents of silver, choice antimony, large
blocks of . . . ivory beds, armchairs of ivory, elephant hide(s), elephant
ivory, ebony, boxwood, garments with multi-colored trim, linen garments,
blue-purple wool, red-purple wool, utensils of bronze, iron, copper, tin (and)
iron, chariots, shields, lances, armor, iron belt-daggers, bows and
ussu-arrows, equipment, (and) implements of war, (all of which were without
number, together with his daughters, his palace women, male singers, (and)
female singers brought into Nineveh, my capital city, and he sent a mounted
messenger of his to me to deliver (this) payment and to do obeisance.
Supporters
of a one-campaign theory have difficulty reconciling such historical testimony
with a massive Assyrian defeat as recorded in the Bible. But that last is yet
well in the future.
Flushed
with success, the king of Assyria would now engage in that campaign back east
with which the Book of Judith opens, his Year 12. And it will be because he
receives no help for it from those whom he has already conquered that king Sennacherib,
as the “Nebuchadnezzar” in the Book of Judith (2:1): “… he and
his advisers decided to carry out his threat to take revenge on all those
countries that had refused to help him”.
This
Year 12 campaign was against the Chaldean king, Merodach-baladan (so-called
II), who must be the “Arphaxad” of the Book of Judith. Rightly, the alliance
against the Assyrian king is called “Chaldean” (Judith 1:6):
Many
nations joined forces with King Arphaxad—all the people who lived in the
mountains, those who lived along the Tigris, Euphrates, and Hydaspes rivers, as
well as those who lived in the plain ruled by King Arioch of Elam. Many nations
joined this Chelodite alliance [var. “… many nations joined the forces of the
Chaldeans”].
Here,
in this gloss to the Book of Judith (1:6), we meet another quite mysterious
character, “King Arioch [ruler] of Elam”.
Ahikar
For
consistency, “Arioch” here should have been rendered as “Achior”.
He
is most important in the Book of Judith, and he helps to date the drama. For Achior
was the famous Ahikar (named “Achior” in the Douay version), the nephew of
Tobit, a most well-known figure in ancient literature as a high official for
Assyria and a brilliant sage. That he held the highest possible rank during the
reigns of Sennacherib and Esarhaddon is attested in Tobit 1:21-22:
Esarhaddon, became emperor and put
Ahikar, my brother Anael's son, in charge of all the financial affairs of the
empire. This was actually the second time Ahikar was appointed to this
position, for when Sennacherib was emperor of Assyria, Ahikar had been wine
steward, treasurer, and accountant, and had been in charge of the official
seal. Since Ahikar was my nephew, he put in a good word for me with the
emperor, and I was allowed to return to Nineveh.
Ahikar,
who had assisted his uncle Tobit during part of the latter’s four years of
blindness, was sent to govern Elam (the Elamites) (Tobit 2:10): “For four years I could see nothing. My relatives were deeply
concerned about my condition, and Ahikar supported me for two years before he
went to the land of Elam”. This is the mysterious “King Arioch [ruler] of
Elam”. He was not an Elamite but an Israelite who governed the land of Elam for
Assyria. Nor was he an “Ammonite” (a confusion with “Elamite”) as we find him in
current versions of Judith. Though in Judith 6:2, “Holofernes” contemptuously,
but correctly, connects Achior with “hirelings of Ephraïm [northern Israelites]”.
Achior
as a supposed “Ammonite”, later converting into Yahwism, is another reason why
the Book of Judith has not been accorded canonicity. For Mosaïc Law forbade Moabites
and Ammonites to be “received into the Assembly of the Lord” (Deuteronomy 23:3).
However,
when it is understood that Achior was Ahikar, the nephew of Tobit, an Israelite
of the northern tribe of Naphtali, then this argument no longer has any force.
Uzziah
He,
a great prince of the land, can only be Isaiah himself.
A
southerner, Uzziah (Isaiah) must have moved to the northern Bethel, Judith’s
“Bethulia” - which Dr. Charles C. Torrey well identified, both geographically
and strategically, with the important city of Shechem (“The Site of ‘Bethulia’,”
JAOS, Vol. 20, 1899, pp. 167-172) - to partner there his father, Amos.
These
Simeonites did not belong to any prophetic tradition, as is apparent from Amos
7:14: “Amos answered Amaziah, ‘I was neither a prophet nor the
son of a prophet …’.”
They
were not the first Simeonites to go north as others had done so well before, during
the reign of king Asa of Judah. Previously I had written on this:
Presumably Amos chose Bethel/Bethulia in which to
settle because there, more than likely, he had Simeonite ancestors. Judith’s
husband Manasseh would later be buried near Bethulia “with his ancestors”
(Judith 8:3). This town would thus have been one of those locations in which
the migrant Simeonites of king Asa of Judah’s reign (more than a century
earlier) had chosen to settle; perhaps re-naming the place Bethul [Bethel]
after a Simeonite town of that name in south western Judah (Joshua 19:4).
When
the Lord had sent the shepherd Amos north, He apparently did not designate a
specific place in which Amos was to dwell (Amos 7:15): “But
the Lord took me from tending the flock and said to me, ‘Go, prophesy to my
people Israel’.”
Uzziah’s
father is named in Judith 6:15 as “Micah, of the tribe of
Simeon”, and not as Amos (or Amoz) (Isaiah 1:1). However, the prophet Micah
is so much like Amos that he has actually been designated “Amos redivivus”, and thus I presume (with
further assistance from the Book of Judith) that Micah was Amos.
Isaiah
will in fact emulate Micah in Judah in going “barefoot and naked” (cf. Micah
1:8; Isaiah 20:2).
“Holofernes”
The
name is meaningless and probably un-historical.
The
only clue to the real person behind the name “Holofernes” can be found, once
again, I believe, in the indispensable Book of Tobit. In chapter 14:10, the
dying Tobit praises his nephew Ahikar for his almsgiving – had he not, for
instance, looked after the blind Tobit?
But
Tobit warns his son, Tobias, about the one who had betrayed Ahikar, who - given
my identification of Ahikar with Judith’s Achior - could only be “Holofernes”.
Tobit
calls him Nadin (or Nadab):
Remember what
Nadab did to Ahikar his own uncle who had brought him up. He tried to kill
Ahikar and forced him to go into hiding in a tomb. Ahikar came back into the
light of day, but God sent Nadab down into everlasting darkness for what he had
done. Ahikar escaped the deadly trap which Nadab had set for him, because
Ahikar had given generously to the poor. But Nadab fell into that fatal trap
and it destroyed him. ….
Ahikar
had tutored this Nadin, who was king Sennacherib’s eldest son - had Sennacherib
married Ahikar’s daughter? - Ashur-nadin-shumi,
hence second to the king (Judith 2:4): “Nebuchadnezzar gave
the following command to Holofernes, who was the general in command of his
armies and second in command to the
king”.
Only
Achior who had known the Crown Prince from childhood could have told Judith,
after she had recounted her story about “Holofernes” (Judith 12:20): “… he [Holofernes]
drank far more wine than he had drunk on any other day in his life”.
Judith
She,
who has so many ‘manifestations’ of greater or lesser likeness to herself
throughout later BC antiquity, and whose radiance still glows into supposed AD
time (as we have seen), also has some important other biblical alter egos, I believe.
These
I intend to explore in detail in subsequent articles.
How?
There
are so many colourful theories as to what precisely happened to king Sennacherib’s
ill-fated army of 185,000.
Dr.
Immanuel Velikovsky (Worlds in Collision)
had thought it was a rogue Mars that caused the disaster: https://www.asa3.org/ASA/PSCF/1973/JASA12-73Newman.html
…. about 800 B.C., Venus nearly collided with the
planet Mars. As a result, the Martian surface was devastated and its orbit was
disrupted, while Venus settled into a new orbit where it became a planet and no
longer menaced the earth.26
Unfortunately, however, the new orbit of Mars now made it a threat to earth in place of Venus. Although the Martian upheavals were not so violent as the earlier Venerian calamities,27 the red planet still succeeded in turning hack the shadow on the dial of Ahaz,28 wiping out the Assyrian hosts of Sennacherib besieging Jerusalem [sic],29 providing phenomena for the striking catastrophes mentioned by several of the Old Testament prophets,30 changing the length of the month and the year,31 influencing the outcome of the Trojan War,32 and adding a new war god to the pantheon of many pagan religions.33
Unfortunately, however, the new orbit of Mars now made it a threat to earth in place of Venus. Although the Martian upheavals were not so violent as the earlier Venerian calamities,27 the red planet still succeeded in turning hack the shadow on the dial of Ahaz,28 wiping out the Assyrian hosts of Sennacherib besieging Jerusalem [sic],29 providing phenomena for the striking catastrophes mentioned by several of the Old Testament prophets,30 changing the length of the month and the year,31 influencing the outcome of the Trojan War,32 and adding a new war god to the pantheon of many pagan religions.33
One
reader tried to convince me that it was caused by massive electrical
discharges.
Very
selective ones, I would think, being able to wipe out 185,000 Assyrians on the
spot, but avoiding any hits on the Israelites in the vicinity.
The
ancients spoke about it in terms of a plague of mice, or a pestilence. This was
no doubt due to the Assyrian tendency to ridicule their puny opponents as mice
(e.g. Judith 14:12): ‘Go in, and awake [Holofernes], for the mice, coming out
of their holes, have presumed to challenge us to fight’.
The
Book of Judith tells us exactly how it happened, and in detail.
It
was actually a rout, not a zapping of an entire 185,000 men on the spot.
That
just does not happen in real life!
It
was set in train by Judith’s beheading of the all-conquering, all-powerful
Assyrian commander-in-chief. No doubt the angel that had, according to the
Douay version, accompanied Judith and her maid into the Assyrian camp and
protected the two women (Judith 13:20): “But as the same Lord liveth, his angel
hath been my keeper both going hence, and abiding there, and returning from
thence hither …”, had served to set terror and panic amongst the Assyrians. Cf.
Isaiah 37:36: “Then the angel of the Lord went out and put to death a hundred and eighty-five thousand in the
Assyrian camp. When the people got up the next morning—there were all the dead
bodies!”
Where?
Pelusium
(Herodotus)? Jerusalem? Dothan?
The
geography can be as confusing as the names, in some instances.
But
what is certain is that the incident occurred in northern Israel, outside an
important and strategic town facing Dothan (Judith 4:6): “The
High Priest Joakim, who was in Jerusalem at that time, wrote to the people in
the towns of Bethulia and Betomesthaim, which face Jezreel Valley near Dothan”.
This information saves us from having to search over a fair reach of the
ancient world (such as Egypt) for the Where? of the disaster for Assyria.
Judith’s
“Bethulia” was, I believe (as Dr. Torrey had argued), the ancient city of
Shechem.
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