Part One:
Ahiqar as a figure of real history
by
Damien F. Mackey
“… the listing of Ahiqar in a Late Babylonian tablet testifies to the fact that the
role of Ahiqar, as known from the Aramaic version found at Elephantine, the book of Tobit, and the later Ahiqar sources, was firmly entrenched in Babylonian tradition”.
John Day et al.
John Day, Robert P. Gordon, Hugh Godfrey Maturin Williamson write about the important sage, Ahiqar, in Wisdom in Ancient Israel, pp. 43-44:
The figure of Ahiqar has remained a source of interest to scholars in a variety of fields. The search for the real Ahiqar, the acclaimed wise scribe who served as chief counsellor to Sennacherib and Esarhaddon, was a scholarly preoccupation for many years. …. He had a sort of independent existence since he was known from a series of texts – the earliest being the Aramaic text from Elephantine, followed by the book of Tobit, known from the Apocrypha and the later Syriac, Armenian and Arabic texts of Ahiqar. …. An actual royal counsellor and high court official who had been removed from his position and later returned to it remains unknown.
Mackey’s comment: I have also identified this Ahiqar (var. Achior, Vulgate Book of Tobit) as the “Achior” (and also the “Arioch”) of the Book of Judith; and as the “Arioch” of the Book of Daniel. See e.g.:
Meeting of the wise – Arioch and Daniel
Day et al. continue:
…. E. Reiner found the theme of the 'disgrace and rehabilitation of a minister' combined with that of the ‘ungrateful nephew’ in the 'Bilingual Proverbs’, and saw this as a sort of parallel to the Ahiqar story.
Mackey’s comment: For my identification of the ‘ungrateful nephew’, Nadin (var. Nadab), see my article:
"Nadin" (Nadab) of Tobit is the "Holofernes" of Judith
Day et al. continue:
…. She [Reiner] also emphasized that in Mesopotamia the ummânu was not only a learned man or craftsman but was also a high official.
At the time that Reiner noted the existence of this theme in Babylonian wisdom literature, Ahiqar achieved a degree of reality with the discovery in Uruk, in the investigations of winter 1959/60, of a Late Babylonian tablet (W20030,7) dated to the 147th year of the Seleucid era (= 165 BCE).
Mackey’s comment: For my proposed radical revision of this Seleucid era, see my article:
A New Timetable for the Nativity of Jesus Christ
Day et al. continue:
…. This tablet contains a list of antediluvian kings and their sages (apkallû) and postdiluvian kings and their scholars (ummânu). The postdiluvian kings run from Gilgamesh to Esarhaddon. This text informs us (p. 45, lines 19-20) that in the time of King Aššur-aḫ-iddina, one A-ba-dninnu-da-ri (= Aba-enlil-dari), (whom) the Aḫlamu (i.e., Arameans) call Aḫ-'u-qa-ri (= Aḫuqar), was the ummânu. As was immediately noted, Aḫuqar was the equivalent of Aḥiqar. ….
The names of the ummânē of Sennacherib and Esarhaddon are known to us from a variety of sources, but Ahiqar's name does not appear in any contemporary source. ….
Mackey’s comment: But what is actually “contemporary” may now need to be seriously reconsidered if there is any weight to my series:
Aligning Neo-Babylonia with Book of Daniel. Part Two: Merging late neo-Assyrians with Chaldeans
https://www.academia.edu/38330399/Aligning_Neo-Babylonia_with_Book_of_Daniel._Part_Two_Merging_late_neo-Assyrians_with_Chaldeans
Day et al. continue:
Indeed, it has been recently claimed that the passage from the Uruk document 'is clearly fictitious and of no historical value’, for A-ba-dninnu-da-ri was the name of a scholar known from the Middle Babylonian period.
Mackey’s comment: That is exactly what I would expect to find, the sage ummânu existing in both the so-called Middle and the neo Assyro-Babylonian periods, due to a necessary as demanded by revision) folding of the Middle into the later period.
Day et al. continue:
…. Yet, the listing of Ahiqar in a Late Babylonian tablet testifies to the fact that the role of Ahiqar, as known from the Aramaic version found at Elephantine, the book of Tobit, and the later Ahiqar sources, was firmly entrenched in Babylonian tradition.
He may also be Esagil-kini-ubba
“The story of Ahikar is one of the most phenomenal in the ancient world in that it
has become part of many different literatures and has been preserved in several
different languages: Syriac, Arabic, Armenian, Greek, Slavonic, and Old Turkish”.
R. Murphy
Looking further to identify the Israelite sage and proverb-writer, Ahiqar (Ahikar) - a most famous ummânu in the neo Assyrian court - with a similarly famous Middle Babylonian ummânu, Esagil-kini-ubba, I wrote in my university thesis:
A Revised History of the Era of King Hezekiah of Judah
and its Background
(Volume One, pp. 185-186)
A Legendary Vizier (Ummânu)
Perhaps a further indication of a need for merging the C12th BC king of Babylon, Nebuchednezzar I, with the C8th BC king of Assyria, Sargon II/ Sennacherib ….
My comment: At that stage I had considered Nebuchednezzar I to be what I had described as ‘the Babylonian face’ of Sargon II (my Sennacherib).
But now, with my further crunching of neo-Assyrian and neo-Babylonian history:
Aligning Neo-Babylonia with Book of Daniel. Part Two: Merging late neo-Assyrians with Chaldeans
https://www.academia.edu/38330399/Aligning_Neo-Babylonia_with_Book_of_Daniel._Part_Two_Merging_late_neo-Assyrians_with_Chaldeans
I would be more inclined to identify Nebuchednezzar I as Nebuchednezzar II.
Continuing with my thesis:
… is that one finds during the reign of ‘each’ a vizier of such fame that he was to be remembered for centuries to come. It is now reasonable to assume that this is one and the same vizier.
I refer, in the case of Nebuchednezzar I, to the following celebrated vizier: …. “The name Esagil-kini-ubba, ummânu or “royal secretary” during the reign of Nebuchednezzar I, was preserved in Babylonian memory for almost one thousand years – as late as the year 147 of the Seleucid Era (= 165 B.C.) …”.
Even better known is Ahikar (var. Akhiqar), of Sennacherib’s reign, regarding whose immense popularity we read: ….
The story of Ahikar is one of the most phenomenal in the ancient world in that it has become part of many different literatures and has been preserved in several different languages: Syriac, Arabic, Armenian, Greek, Slavonic, and Old Turkish. The most ancient recension is the Aramaic, found amongst the famous 5th-cent. BC papyri that were discovered … on Elephantine Island in the Nile. The story worked its way into the Arabian nights and the Koran; it influenced Aesop, the Church Fathers as well as Greek philosophers, and the OT itself.
According to the first chapter of [the Book of Tobit]: “Ahikar had been chief cupbearer, keeper of the signet, administrator and treasurer under Sennacherib” and he was kept in office after Sennacherib’s death. At some point in time Ahikar seems to have been promoted to Ummânu, or Vizier, second in power in the mighty kingdom of Assyria, “Chancellor of the Exchequer for the kingdom and given the main ordering of affairs” (1:21, 22).
Ahikar was Chief Cupbearer, or Rabshakeh … during Sennacherib’s Third Campaign when Jerusalem was besieged (2 Kings 18:17; Isaiah 36:2). His title (Assyrian rab-šakê) means, literally, ‘the great man’. It was a military title, marking its bearer amongst the greatest of all the officers. Tobit tells us that Ahikar (also given in the Vulgate version of BOT as Achior) was the son of his brother Anael (1:21). Ahikar was therefore Tobit’s nephew, of the tribe of Naphtali, taken into captivity by ‘Shalmaneser’.
This Ahikar/Achior was - as I shall be arguing in VOLUME TWO (cf. pp. 8, 46-47) - the
same as the important Achior of [the Book of Judith].
Kraeling, whilst incorrectly I believe suggesting that: … “There does not appear to be any demonstrable connection between this Achior [Judith] and the Ahikar of the [legendary] Aramaic Story”, confirms however that the name Achior can be the same as Ahikar ….
….
I had suggested … that Adad-apla-iddina, ruler of Babylon at the time of Tiglathpileser I, may have been the same person as Merodach-baladan I/II. I may now be able to strengthen this link to some degree through the agency of the vizier just discussed. For, according to Brinkman: …. “… Esagil-kini-ubba served as ummânu … under Adad-apla-iddina…”.
Babylonia, a cunning, ‘crooked serpent’ diplomatically, has also been a tortuous riddle for historians to try to unravel. ….
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