Biblical Chronology

Someone new has entered the pass-time of interpreting Biblical Chronology, a project called The Tetra-Scroll.

My first annoyance is that like many others she has made the mistake of using the standard Secular date for Solomon as her starting point, which has his reign begin in 970 BC, and The Temple construction starting in 966 BC, and his death about 930 BC.  And thus the Exodus in 1446 BC.

The starting point should be the Fall of Jerusalem to Nebuchadnezzar when Solomon's Temple was destroyed.  Which there is a two year discrepancy for, 588-586 BC.  Though I have seen one reference to 584 BC.  It was definitely in the 580s.

Ezekiel 4:4-6 tells us that there would be 390 years from the division of the Kingdom to the fall of Jerusalem.  That puts the division of the Kingdom in the 970s BC.  The division happens soon after Solomon died.  Many have counted all the reigns of the Kings of Judah to match that, with disagreement on the details but basically they match that.  Here is one website doing so without mentioning Ezekiel.

The problem was there are apparent inconsistencies between the Biblical Chronology and the conclusions historians have drawn from Assyrian Chronology.  And so secular historians chose to believe Assyria over The Bible, and then many believers sought to force The Bible to match the presumed Assyrian Chronology.  But there have been good arguments against using Assyrian chronology this way at Answers In Genesis and Creation Wiki, though I don't always agree with them exactly, I made my own post that deals with Ahab and Jehu.

Bishop James Ussher's Chronology in Annals of The World I think made mistakes, but I believe he got the Kingdom Period right, from Saul down to Zedekiah.  Ussher's Chronology is summarized here.  My only variation from Ussher on the Kingdom period would be I'd have Solomon 2 or 3 years younger when he becomes King because I believe Solomon was the youngest of Bathsheba's sons.  So Ussher had him 18 I have him as 15 or 16.  That doesn't effect the other dates at all however.

So I place the beginning of Solomon's reign about 1015 BC.  And the completion of The Temple in 1004 BC.  With 1011 or 1012 BC as when The Temple construction was started.

Some will also try to use the way Josephus synchronized Solomon with a Tyrian historian in Against Apion to support a younger date for Solomon.  Josephus goal in that part of that book was to show the Israelite nation had antiquity from gentile histories, he wanted to show how even the youngest possibly interpretation of the evidence makes Israel older then Classical Greece.  If he was aware that date for Hiram's reign conflicted with his other information he may not have even concerned himself with it.  Some think the copies he had of those Tyrian historians may have already been corrupted from the originals, today we don't have them independent of Josephus at all unfortunately.

In Wars of The Jews, after The Temple is destroyed in Book 6 at the end of chapter 4 he says it had been since it's first foundation was laid by Solomon 1130 years plus 7 months and 15 days.  Counting back from 70 AD that gives us 1061 BC, which is older then Ussher's date, (during his time frame for the reign of Saul).  If someone can find a way to interpret the chronology of the Kingdom period consistent with that I'd be interested, but for now I still favor Ussher's.

Josephus also said in Wars 6.10 it was 477 years and 6 months from David's taking Jerusalem till it was destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar.  (Counting from a 588 BC date that is 1065 BC and 2 years later for the more popular 586 BC date) And that there was 1179 years from David till the destruction in 70 AD.  That's 1110 BC.  Not sure how those 3 dates he gave can be reconciled with each other much less The Bible.

When discussing the High Priesthood in Antiquities 20.10.2 he says there was 466 years and 6 months and 10 days form the dedication of Solomon's Temple till it was destroyed in 588-6 BC.  That gives us about 1054 BC for the completion of the Temple which is consistent with his date for when it began.  Which sounds like it makes 1065 BC his date for David's death and Solomon becoming King.  And 1110 BC his date for David being given Ziklag.  In Antiquities he corrects many mistakes he made in Wars.  These dates would add exactly 50 years to Ussher's for David and Solomon.

One thing that I feel confirms Ussher's date for the reigns of David and Solomon (about 1055-975 BC), is that Diodorus list of Thalasocracies (preserved by Eusebius) has the Pelasgians as the dominant seas power at about exactly that time (1057-972 BC).  And I've argued elsewhere how Pelesgians could come from Pelegians or descendants of Peleg, and thus be a term some Greeks might have called the Hebrews.  Also about 972 or 971 BC was when Ussher dated Shishak's sacking of Jerusalem in the early reign of Rehoboam.

Ussher's date for the Exodus was 1492 BC,  1 Kings 6:1 says there were 480 years from the Exodus to when The Temple was started.  Ussher and many others chose to just assume the one verse without a second witness settles the issue.

Problem is Acts 13 says there was 40 years in the Wilderness, 450 years of Judges, 40 years for Saul and 40 years for David.  That doesn't agree with only 480 years total, but when you count the time periods in Judges and 1 Samuel it agrees with 450 years from the first time Israel was subjugated to the start of Saul's reign.

Many have argued that the 480 year reference intentionally didn't count the foreign oppressions or the brief reign of Abimelech.  Which means you can add 114 years to the 480 to get 594 and then everything fits nicely.  That would move Ussher's Exodus date to 1606 BC, the end of the wandering in the Wilderness to 1566, the end of Joshua's 7 years conquest to 1559, and the death of Joshua in 1557 BC.

Josephus in Antiquities of The Jews 8.3.1 gave 592 years for this period.  Which suggests he considered the foreign oppressions to be excluded from the 480 but not Abimelech's 2 years.  He also said in 20.10.1 there were 612 years from Aaron till Solomon' Temple was dedicated.  Again Josephus numbers have issues, but he clearly recognized the Judges period was at least 450 years independent of trying to reconcile with Acts 13.

The Tetra-Scroll has the 430 years that ended with the Exodus begin when Abraham was 70.  This is based on her own convoluted explanation for two references being 430 years (Exodus 12:40 and Galatians 3:17) and another in Genesis 15 saying 400 years being a difference of 30 years before Issac was born.

But that doesn't work, nothing in The Bible is actually dated to when Abraham was 70, Genesis 12 begins with Abraham being 75 and that is where the 430 years references start.  Genesis 15 could just be saying about 400 years and the exact number we have to get elsewhere.

That is if you agree that the 430 years should begin with Abraham and not with Joseph.  As Ussher, the Tetra-Scroll and Rob Skiba all agree it should.  But I haven't made up my mind on that entirely yet.

The Prophecy being given to Abraham by no means proves it starts with him.  Galatians 3:17 is the main reason I have sometimes leaned towards 430 years from God making his promise to Abraham (which was when Abraham was 75, not 70) until the Torah was given.

The context of Galatians 3 earlier talked a great deal about Abraham.  But Promises were given more then once, so it could be Paul meant The Law was 430 years after the last Promise God gave the Patriarchs.  Which could arguably refer to the Death of either Jacob of Joseph.   Also what Paul meant could have been at least 430 years as he no doubt knew Exodus 12:40.

The way the 430 years is expressed in Exodus 12:40 makes it sound like it was entirely in Egypt.   Jacob died in 2315 AM.  Joseph died in 2369 AM.  According to Ussher, who's Biblical AM dates I consider correct up to the Death of Levi in 2385 AM.  The Death of Joseph is when the narrative of Genesis ends.  It could be the enslavement happened 30 years after Joseph died, which would make a lot of things fit.

I used to agree with Rob Skiba that they were not necessarily slaves for the entire 400 years, the disagreement is only if the 430 or 400 years should begin when either Joseph or the family as a whole entered Egypt rather then Abraham.  But the wording of Genesis 15 as I've studied it in more then just the KJV, says they will be in the nation that will afflict them for 400 years.

One mistake Skiba makes is he thinks the Pharaoh who "did not remember Joseph" literally lived so long later after that Joseph was forgotten.  If that's the case that actually supports a longer sojourn in Egypt model.

That statement could be just an expression meaning he didn't regard Joseph, he was willingly ignorant of what Joseph accomplished.  There is no guarantee that Pharaoh was born after Joseph died, and no reason he couldn't have been the very next new Pharaoh to be crowned after Joseph died.

Stephen in Acts further says that the Israelites suffered in Egypt for 400 years.  The Enslavement can't happen till after Joseph dies because it requires a New Pharaoh.  Perhaps it was 30 years after Joseph died.

Joseph's brothers entered Egypt over 200 years after God called Abraham, in the second year of the 7 year famine.  Joseph lived some time past that point and Moses was born 80 years before the Exodus.  So there would not be that many generations from Joseph to Moses.  If you start the 430 years with Abraham.  Yet the Hebrews had reproduced into a very large population.

Some might argue the genealogies don't give enough generations to fit my longer interpretation of the the Sojourn and Judges periods.  It can be demonstrated from The Bible repeatedly that Hebrew genealogies are willing to skip generations.  The Genesis 5 and 11 genealogies are exceptions because they mention dates, they're chrono-genealogies.  Matthew 1's genealogy skipped at least a few names the Old Testament records.  So I think there were more then two generations between Levi and Moses (certainly more then one mater-lineally).

There being more then only 10 generations from Pharez to David may hurt the way Chuck Missler likes to tie Genesis 38 to Deuteronomy 23:1-2's law about bastard lines not entering the assembly before the 10th generation as a prophecy of David.  But it may also be The Holy Spirit only recorded 10 generations to make it spiritually fit that even if it didn't literally.  The family of Boaz and Naomi certainly doesn't seem like one that didn't have full citizenship due to descending from bastards, they were actually pretty prominent locally.

Genesis 11:36 days Terah was 70 when he began having children.  Abraham is listed first because he's the most important to this chronicler, like Shem being listed first usually even though Genesis 10 tells us Japheth was the oldest and Shem the youngest.

The Chapter divisions were not in the original text, Genesis 11 ends with telling us Terah died then 12:1 God calls Abraham.  Acts 7:14 clarified Abraham left Haran when Terah died, which Genesis 12 makes clear was when Abraham was 75.  Since one of Abraham's brothers already had a full grown son at this time, it's not at all absurd to conclude Abraham was born 60 years after the firstborn.

The so called Book of Jasher supports a 1948 AM birth-date for Abraham because it's author wanted to have Abraham and Noah meet (it's basically Medieval Jewish Fan Fiction), and Noah died between 1948 and 2008 AM.  But since Noah was the first generation born after Adam died, Abraham being born after Noah died I feel fits better thematically.

So, Abraham was born in 2008 AM and called in 2083 AM.  Isaac was born 2108 AM and Abraham died in 2183 AM.

Ussher's Creation date I currently think was certainly 114 years off.  That gives us a Creation date of 4118 BC and the Flood in 2462 BC.  But I still haven't made up my mind exactly on chronology.

Also I do not believe The Tower of Babel incident happened the year Peleg was born, the Hebrew used a different word for divided there then when describing Babel.  I think it refereed to geographical divisions happening from the sea levels rising.  Babel would have happened sooner.  Peleg's Birth in the above model would be 2361 BC.

The author of the Tetra-Scroll eschatologically believes in the Seven Millenniums theory which I do not.  So she makes a big deal out of 6000 years from Creation being in her estimation 2107 AD and 7000 years being 3107.  My calculation above would give the 6000 years date as being 1883.

That is all assuming the 430 years begins with the call of Abraham.  No matter what I date 430 years before The Exodus to 2036 BC.

A longer Soujorn model would require a 4333 BC creation date at least, but if my hunch developed above of possibly beginning the 430 years with the Death of Joseph is correct, that would be a Creation date of 4405 BC and 2749 BC for The Flood and 2648 for the birth of Peleg.  That would place the year 6000 in 1596 AD.

I have trouble with using a Flood date as young as Ussher's (2348 BC) much less younger based on the conclusions I've come to studying Ancient History.

I don't mean Egypt (which conventional Chronology says started around 3100 BC) I know from the revised Chronology discussed on this blog Egypt is probably much younger.  And that Ussher's 2188 BC date for Egypt's founding is plausible.  Though I'd make it a little older then that.

China is not effected by revising Egyptian Chronology.  The dates for China's earliest Emperors are older even then the oldest Flood date proposed above.  The Earliest Chinese Emperors are highly mythologized, but I think their dates are accurate at least as early as Shun.

The date for the beginning of Fuxi's reign is right when Shem would have been born with a 2749 Flood date, 2852 BC.  Fuxi is the brother of Nuwa, a female Chinese deity with a name oddly similar to Noah, who is linked to China's Flood legend.  I feel it's possible Noah could have been married to his Sister, so they could be corrupted Pagan memorizes of Noah and his Wife.  The Yan Emperor is often identified with Shennong, he could be based on Shem.

2333 BC is the traditional date of the founding of the Korean kingdom of Gojoseon by Dangun.

But more directly relevant I expressed on this Blog before why I do feel The Sumerian Kings List isn't changed by Revised Chronology.  Though whether I favor the Short Chronology or Middle Chronology remains to be seen.  It's the Short Chronology that places the 2234 BC date for the founding of Babylon during the reign of Sargon of Akkad which fits the theories of my earlier Babel Post.  So I'll favor that for now.

That puts the Death of Gilgamesh at possibly 2623 BC but no later then 2503 BC.  Two Kings were between him and Enmerkar who I view as Nimrod.  Noah died 2006 AM which in this Creation model would be 2399 BC.  So Gilgamesh could have met him.

Deciding to randomly round down the exaggerated reigns of Enmerkar to 42, Lugalbanda 12, Dmuzid 10 and Gilgamesh to 12.  Gives them 76 years total.  Which could put the beginning of Nimrod's reign in 2699 BC.  Which in China happens to be the same year the Yellow Emperor began his reign.  I'm not gonna speculate they're the same person, but it's an interesting coincidence.  Sima-Qian considered him possibly the earliest historical Emperor.

The end of the reign of queen Kug-Bau/Kubaba of Kish would be 2409 BC.  The reign of Enshagkushana who she was contemporary with would be 2483-2423 BC using the calculation that has Gilgamessh die in 2623 BC.

Ur-Zababa of Kish's reign would have been from 2383-2377.  Sargon of Akkad was supposed to have been his Cup bearer at some point.  Which would make Sargon over 100 years old when he became King in about 2270 BC, and then reigned 56 years after that.  Genesis tells us that is possible.

The Death of Terah and Abraham leaving Haran would have been in 2322 BC.  During the reign of Ishme-Shamash of Kish, and possibly Lugal-Kinshe-dudu or Lugal-ure of Uruk.  A post I already linked to shows why I do NOT believe Abraham's Ur was the Sumerian Ur as popularly thought.

Chedolaomer was probably a King of the Awan dynasty who reigned before the Akadian period.  And Amraphel was probably an alternate name for either the contemporary ruler of Kish or Uruk.

I think it's possible the Babel project happened about a Jubilee (49 years) after The Flood around 2700 BC.  Giving Nimrod/Enmerkar about a year to establish himself via his Hunting prowess as a leading figure in Uruk, to then consolidate his power and build an Emperor over the next 42 years.

If you're thinking  "that isn't enough time to produce enough people" you're wrong.  Babel was at the time the dispersion happened probably not a Metropolis by modern standards, I'd be shocked if it had a whole 500 people.  I've done math that tells me you could easily get over 120 people who would be adults by modern standards, and did some rounding down to be safe.

So I feel the 4405 BC Creation date works.  Making now, October of 2015 AD the year 6419 AM.

Update December 8 2015:  I've been rethinking the material from Ezekiel 4:4-6 where the 390 years comes from.  It also refers to 40 years for Judah specifically.  40 years before the finale deportation in 584 BC was 624 BC when Josiah's special Second Passover occurred that brought many of the North to Judah.  It could be that's the end of the Iniquity of the House of Israel followed by 40 remaining years for Judah.  I'm unsure on this though because it would mean finding room for another 40 years in the chronology of the divided kingdom.

But if I could push my Creation and Flood dates down another 40 years to 4445 BC and 2789 BC Flood date.  That gives 89 rather then 49 years between the Flood and when I've calculated the reign of Enmerkar to begin.  Plenty of time for the Tower of Babel to have possibly happened 70-75 years after The Flood.

Also about 635-634 BC was when Josiah began to after God.  So that could add another decade.  And make an interesting thing to speculate with regard to Josephus numbers.

That would change my year 6000 AM date from 1596 to 1556.

But because of certain secular correlations discussed above and how it'd revamp the Kingdom period, I still favor the 4405 BC Creation date.  I found one random site online predating my first making this post that states a 4405 BC Creation date, but it doesn't explain why.  It's Here, that seems to have taken it's info from this Yahoo Answers entry, where a comment leaver named Voice in The Wilderness gave a 4405 BC date 4 years ago.

There is also the option of counting the 390 years as including Solomon's reign since the iniquity did begin with his mistakes, including marrying the Daughter of Pharaoh right at the start.  And so you could end it with Josiah's Passover and still get the same time frame for the Divided Kingdom.

Now it's popular to interpret this 390 years as a prophecy about the Northern Kingdom's captivity and play all kind of games with it misusing the "seven times" statement from Levitcus which was not about time periods.

The Hebrew word translated iniquity means guilt and offense.  The few senses where it can be used of punishment it would mean punishment equivalent to the sin.  Like the captivity in Babylon being 70 years because for 490 years they didn't keep the sabbatical year, that's 70 sabbatical years.  So I have looked at eschatological applications for the 390 years, but they still must be proceeded by 390 years of sin.

February 3rd 2016 Update: I speculate on some Pre-Flood chronology in a new post.

1 Samuel 13:1

Is a verse that is difficult to translate, many skeptics suspect the text itself has lost some of it's original information in the copying.

Most translations ignore that the Hebrew word for "son" is in the verse.  Many translations are easy to mock for making it sound like Saul was only a year old when he began his reign.

My view is that it is saying Saul had a son early in his reign. possibly in it's first year, then it cuts forward 12 years or so to when his sons are much older.

Lots of people think there is no Old Testament basis for Paul's statement in Acts 13 that Saul reigned 40 years, and that the Old Testament narrative implies a reign probably much shorter.

But 2 Samuel 2:10 says Ish-Bosheth was 40 when his reign began.  He was Saul's youngest son born to his wife, so if Saul had at least one son during his reign, he reigned at least 40 years.  My hypothesis is Ish-Bosheth was born during Saul's first year as King.

Is there a connection between Caesar and Seir?

There are a lot of theories about the etymology of the name Caesar.  But the most mainstream widely accepted one is that it came from caesar, a Latin word meaning "hairy".  The first recorded example of a Roman with the name was Sextus Julius Caesar Consul in 208 BC, who might have been known for being hairy.

In Hebrew, the name Seir (strong number 8165) also means hairy.  Seir was the name of a mountain range in Edom, the land of the Edomites, and of a Horite who's descendants intermarried with the Edomites.  Esau, the progenitor of the Edomites was also known for being Hairy.

Caesar could conceivably derive from Seir in some way, making this name further evidence for Edom becoming Rome.

Update: Britam responded to this theory
http://hebrewnations.com/articles/bible/caesar.html

The Name of Julius Caesar in Etymology

Contents:
1. Introduction: Edomites, Seir, and being "Hairy"
2. JaredThaJa: The Name Caesar is derived from a word meaning "hairy"!
3. Reply by Yair Davidiy: Different Explanations Given by Wikipedia
4. The name "Caesar" derives from Esau!
5. The Blessing to Esau
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1. Introduction
We identify the Edomites descendants of Esau, twin-brother of Jacob,  as the ancestors of important element amongst the Ancient Romans, Germans, Russians and other peoples. We also find them amongst the Lost Ten tribes. They assisted the Assyrians (see Amos ch.1) in transporting and exiling the Israelites.
We have two books on the subject on the verge of publication and distribution.
 The Edomites had conquered the Land of Seir and intermixed with its inhabitants. The term Seir is used in the Bible as synonymous with Edom. One of the meanings of "Seir" is hairy which shows the significance of names in understanding the bible since Esau was born as "red, all over like a hairy garment" i.e."red and hairy" (Genesis 25:25).
Ancient Rome played an important in early European history. It still does. The Ruling Classes of Europe were raised until recently reading Latin Literature.
The early Republic of Rome was replaced by the Roman Empire. The first Emperor was Julius Caesar.  In his honor all future emperors were also known as Caesar.
The terms "Kaiser" (i.e. in Germany) and Czar (in Russia) also derive from the name "Caesar".
They saw themselves as continuations of the Roman Empire.
We received a message (shown below) suggesting that the very name "Caesar" originally meant "hairy".
This is interesting.
In Etymology a word may have a certain origin yet have been modified by the meaning of another word similar in sound to it.
In other words different explanations for the meaning and origin of a word may exist without necessarily contradicting each other.
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2. JaredThaJa: The Name Caesar is derived from a word meaning "hairy"!
Subject: Caesar and Seir
From: "JaredThaJa ." <jaredthaja@gmail.com>
I've posted on my blog further evidence for connecting Edom and Rome.
http://mithrandironchronology.blogspot.com/2015/09/is-there-connection-between-caesar-and.htmlIs there a connection between Caesar and Seir?
http://mithrandironchronology.blogspot.co.il/2015/09/is-there-connection-between-caesar-and.htmlThere are a lot of theory about the etymology of the name Caesar.  But the most mainstream widely accepted one is that is came from caesar, a Latin word meaning "hairy".  The first recorded example of a Roman with the name was Sextus Julius Caesar Consul in 208 BC, who might been know for being hairy.

In Hebrew, the name Seir (strong number 8165) also means hairy.  Seir was the name of a mountain range in Edom, the land of the Edomites, and of a Horite who's descendants intermarried with the Edomites.  Esau, the progenitor of the Edomites was also known for being Hairy.

Caesar could conceivable derive from Seir in some way, making this name further evidence for Edom becoming Rome.
Posted by JaredMithrandir at 7:31 PM
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3. Reply by Yair Davidiy: Different Explanations Given by Wikipedia

Caesar as a term for Emperor is presumed to be derived from the family name of Julius Caesar (100 BCE -44 BCE) the first Roman Emperor.

I just came across an article about the renewed popularity of Julius:
'Et tu, Brute?' Why Julius Caesar is wildly popular 2,059 years after his assassination
https://www.rawstory.com/2015/09/et-tu-brute-why-julius-caesar-is-wildly-popular-2059-years-after-his-assassination/It is interesting to note that in the time of Julius Caesar there was a small Jewish community in Rome. Caesar befriended them and is on record as threatening to execute anyone spreading calumnies about them.

A Wikipedia articles discusses possible origins of the name "Caesar":

Gaius Iulius Caesar (name)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaius_Iulius_Caesar_(name)
In earlier times Caesar could originally have been a praenomen.[24] The suffix -ar was highly unusual for the Latin language, which might imply a non-Latin origin of the name. The etymology of the name Caesar is still unknown and was subject to many interpretations even in antiquity. Julius Caesar himself propagated the derivation from the elephant, an animal that was said to have been called caesai in the "Moorish", i.e. probably Punic language,[25]thereby following the claims of his family that they inherited the cognomen from an ancestor, who had received the name after killing an elephant, possibly during the first Punic War. Since the Gauls came to know the elephant through the Punic commander Hannibal, it is possible that the animal was also known under the name caesar or caesai in Gaul. Caesar used the animal during his conquest of Gaul and probably of Britain,[26] which is further supported by the inclusion of forty elephants on the first day of Caesar's Gallic triumph in Rome.[27] Caesar displayed an elephant above the name CAESAR on his first denarius, which he probably had minted while still in Gallia Cisalpina. Apart from using the elephant as a claim for extraordinary political power in Rome,[28] the coin is an unmasked allusion to this etymology of the name and directly identifies Caesar with the elephant, because the animal treads a Gallic serpent-horn, the carnyx, as a symbolic depiction of Caesar's own victory.[29]

Several other interpretations were propagated in antiquity, all of which remain highly doubtful:
a caesiis oculis[30] ("because of the blue eyes"): Caesar's eyes were black,[31] but since the despotic dictator Sulla had had blue eyes, this interpretation might have been created as part of the anti-Caesarian propaganda in order to present Caesar as a tyrant.[32]
a caesaries[33] ("because of the hair"): Since Caesar was balding, this interpretation might have been part of the anti-Caesarian mockery.
a caeso matris utero[34] ("born by Caesarean section"): In theory this might go back to an unknown Julian ancestor who was born in this way. On the other hand it could also have been part of the anti-Caesarian propaganda, because in the eyes of the Republicans Caesar had defiled the Roman "motherland", which was also reported for one of Caesar's dreams, in which he committed incest with his mother, i.e. the earth.[35]

Another interpretation of Caesar deriving from the verb caedere ("to cut") could theoretically have originated in the argument of the Julians for receiving a sodality of the Lupercalia, the luperci Iulii (or Iuliani). Since the praenomen Kaeso (or Caeso) was at first a proprietary name of the Quinctii and the Fabii, possibly derived from their ritual duty of striking with the goat-skin (februis caedere) at the luperci Quinctiales and the luperci Fabianirespectively, the Julians would then have argued that the name Caesar was identical to the Quinctian and Fabian Kaeso.[36] The identification of the cognomina Kaeso and Caesar was indeed supposed by Pliny, but is, according to Alfoldi (1975), unwarranted.[37]

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4. The name "Caesar" derives from Esau!
Going from memory, de Gobineau in his French-language history of the Ancient Persians traces the name to a root "Kais" or "Kas" or something similar.
He shows how this root name was associated with rulership and monarchs throughout the Indo-European world.
The Idumeans of Edom worshipped an ancestral god named Kos.
This is actually an alternative pronounciation of the name Esau, ancestor of Edom.
The Edomites were destined to provide the ruling classes of numerous peoples. They managed to maintain their homogeneity for centuries by strictly forbidding intermarriage with their subjects.
Esau in Hebrew begins with the letter "Ayin" which could take a guttural sound thus "Aza" becomes "Gaza" and "Omri" was pronounced as "Kumri".
Esau therefore gave his name to rulership.
We saw from Wikipedia above how the "-ar" suffix in Caesar probably shows the non-Latin origin of the name and little more than that.
Caesar is therefore the same "Caes" or "Kais".

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5. The Blessing to Esau

From Caesar we obtain the terms "Kaiser" and "Czar".
This is fitting for a military race of he-men hunters destined to be blessed with material prosperity and live by their sword.

Genesis 27:
 39 Then Isaac his father answered and said to him,
            Behold, OF the fatness  of the earth shall be your dwelling,
            And of the dew of heaven from above.
40 "By your sword you shall live, And your brother you shall serve;
But it shall come about when you go down [from the land, OR "when the time comes for you to rule"], That you will break his yoke from your neck." 

Esau.
Edomites Today
http://hebrewnations.com/publications/books/esaubook.html

EDOM.
Germany & Israel
http://hebrewnations.com/publications/books/edomgermany.htmlSee Also Esau

Continued from:

Esau and the Edomites
http://www.britam.org/Edom/EsauContents.html

Perhaps Caesar comes from Kaus and Seir being merged together.

Disclaimer, I of course do not always agree with the views of Britam.

Using DNA in studying Histoy

This discussion can be viewed as a follow up to Shem Ham and Japheth.

As hyped as at DNA is, it is still limited in how much we know about it.

It can be solid proof that two pieces of flesh came from the same person.  It is also pretty darn reliable for proving very close biological relatives like parents, children and siblings, maybe also first cousins.  But the further distant you get the less solid it is.

As far as distant ancestry goes, only lines that are directly paterlineal (Y chromosome) or directly materlineal (Mitochondrial DNA) can be traced at all.  So using it to prove or disprove relationships between certain modern people groups is limited.  Not only that but it seems like some geneticists consider the mitochondrial DNA more reliable or at least more definitive, while most nations and tribes throughout history have considered paterlineal descent more important, so that's what records were more concerned with documenting.  The Bible included.

Let's take for example using DNA to deal with theories about the "Lost Tribes" of Israel.

People writing off various theories base it mostly on how different groups compare genetically to modern known Jews.  Modern Jewish communities whether Ashkenazim, Sharphari or middle eastern are descended from the southern kingdom.  The Lemba also, while the term lost tribes gets applied to them their oral history tracing them to 70 AD not an Old Testament exile, same with all African Jews.  Also the Mountain Jews, while their oral history claims Northern Kingdom descent, their rabbinic nature tells me they left Judea later then the Bar-Kochba revolt.

The Bible only even kind of implies a consistent paterlineal common ancestry to the Israelites.  The 12 sons of Jacob were mothered by 4 women from 3 families (but there is no guarantee Leah and Rachel even had the same mother).  With the origin of the sons' wives only addressed for 2 of them. Judah had children by 2 women, one we're told was a Canaanitess, but Tamar's ancestry isn't addressed.  Joseph married the daughter of an Egyptian High Priest.  In the case of all three women are sons are refereed to, but these kinds of records often leave out the daughters.  Later references to descendants of Shelah (Numbers 26:20) tell me Tamar did eventually marry him and have more children by him.

Genesis 37:35 tells us that Jacob had daughters, plural.  Dinah alone is named and mentioned in the account of his children being born because of the what happens to her in Genesis 34, but maybe also because she's Zebulun's twin.  So it's possibly all four of Jacob's wives passed on their Mitochondrial DNA.

But even beyond that the Torah isn't as ethnocentric as people think, plenty of ethnic foreigners became Israelites, including at the Exodus (Native Egyptians, and maybe also other people the Egyptians had enslaved like Nubians). The Law of Moses states any stranger living among you who is circumscribed and keeps the Torah should be considered a full citizen and not treated any different.

Jesus biological descent from David I consider indisputable, but that's it.  Well the Kohen descent is more strict then most, but as I've said elsewhere there were no Kohens among the deported northern Israelites.

The divided Kingdom period is around 250 years of the north and south being distinct, what nations they interacted with being distinct.  But what's often over looked is a certain amount of distinction existed before the Monarchy period if you study Judges closely.

It's possible that even the most important Northern Kingdom rulers were foreign in origin.  Omri's name has been observed by scholars to be seemingly NOT a Hebrew name but either Amorite or Arabic.  And indeed the account of his rise to power in Kings refers to the military proclaiming him King in Gibethon "Which belonged to the Philstines".

Gibethon was allotted to Dan originally, but by the end of the Judges period Dan has left their original allotment to settle North, partly because they couldn't keep themselves independent of the Phlsitines.

We know the basis for identifying the Philstines with the Sea Peoples is a major error.  Some scholars have speculated it wasn't originally an ethnic term at all but a term that meant "Foreigners within the land" rather then strict descendants of their Genesis 10 namesake.  I think there could be truth to both, that the Mizraimite tribes in the Gaza region were "foreigners within the land" even to other Canaanites.  This of course opens up the possibility that in Canaanite texts the term might have been applied to the Hebrews.

What I find interesting is that when what we call the end of the Omrid dynasty happens we're not told all of the house of Omri was killed, just all the sons of Ahab.  It's commonly assumed that when the Assyrian inscriptions called Jehu a Son/Descendant of Omri they were either mistaken or meant it in a non literal sense.  But The Bible only traces Jehu's line back two generations paternally and one maternally.  And Kings' narrative voice admits there is much to the history it's not recording.  Maybe Jehu's grandfather was a son of Omri who was made a governor in Gilead?

Besides all that, we also need to remember as Six-Day Young Earth Creationists we need to place those Haplogroups break off points much more recently then secular geneticists who them breaking off 10s of thousands of years ago.  Y-Chromosomal Adam is not Biblical Adam but Noah at the earliest.  And Mithocondrial-Eve tends to be placed much later then him.  I'm inclined to guess Y-Chomosonal Aaron is actually a Kohen who lived in the intertestamental period.

From a site speculating on an Israelite connection for Japan.

Recent DNA researches on Y-chromosome showed that about 40 % of the Japanese have DNA of haplogroup D. Y-chromosome DNA is passed from father to son, and is classified according to genetic features into genetic groups called E/span>haplogroupsEfrom A to T. Only Japanese and Tibetan peoples in the world have haplogroup D at a high frequency. D is rarely found even among the Chinese and Koreans.

According to geneticists, haplogroup D is the compatriot of haplogroup E, which is found in all Jewish groups of the world. Haplogroups D and E were once one and have the common origin, as Wikipedia encyclopedia states:

"Along with haplogroup E, D contains the distinctive YAP polymorphism, which indicates their common ancestry.[Haplogroup D (Y-DNA)]

According to Family Tree DNA, a DNA test provider, especially E1b1b1 type of haplogroup E is “found in all Jewish populations, from Ashkenazi, Sephardic, Kurdish, Yemen, Samaritan and even among Djerba Jewish groups. They use this genetic marker to find Jewish descendants.

Y Chromosome Haplogroup D is also strongly linked to the people of Tibet.  The Himalayas are in Tibet and some have suggest that name is somehow Yah theophoric.

All Native Americans are one of five Mithocondrial Haplogroups, A, B, C, D and X.  And pretty much only two Y-Chromosome Haplogroups, C and Q.  Y-Chromosome C occurs in Japan but very very rarely, Japan is mostly either D or O.

MtDna A, C and D are generally the ones considered to have come across the bearing strait from Russia to Alaska.

B however seems to have strong ties to Japan and the South Pacific and is now more generally thought to have come by boat.  Generally the assumption is they were in Japan first then traveled to the Americas, where B seems to be more affiliated with South America then North America.

The most mysterious of the Native American Haplogroups is X however.  It's the rarest, less then 10% of Natives who've been tested have it, all of them indigenous to North America and none in Mexico or the South West.  It''s been found in bodies buried in Missipian burial mounds proving it existed in America pre-Columbus.  Yet it's the hardest one to connect to East Asia, it's only connection is a people group in Siberia who seem to have migrated there from the South Caucus way to recently.

The South Caucus is not far away from where we know the Northern Israelites were first settled.  It's also been found among Europeans and in the Middle East, though not to my knowledge yet any group known to have Jewish ancestry.  (Update, I've now read that 38% of Libyan Jews are Haplogroup X).

But it's most frequent among the Druze, a religious minority in Israel, Lebanon, Syria and Jordan, their Ethnic Origins seem predominately Arab but with plenty of room for other groups to come in, they have many diverse Mitochondrial Haplogroups.  It exists among the Druze of Galiee who are said to have been the most Isolated Druze group.  This leads me to suspect X could have it's origin in women who lived in the Galilee region.

It'd be interesting if we ever find the bodies of Jesus maternal half-siblings and get to study their DNA, I wonder if we'll find out the Virgin Mary was mtDNA Haplogroup X?

Lots of people debate over which gentiles may or may not have Lost Tribes descent are motivated by desires of people to make their groups or a group their interested in special Biblically.  But some people actually feel like The Bible hints at Ephraim becoming ALL the Gentiles in Genesis 48.  Not taking away descent from other groups also, but indeed it's easy to imagine in enough time a wondering group of people spreading their DNA everywhere with over 2000 years to do so.  I've also seen it claimed that not just all Royalty but all Europeans period alive today probably descend from Charlemagne, I know I have some lords in my ancestry a thousand years ago.

What I've speculated on so far has been focused on Europe and Asia and Native Americans.  African links are plausible though. Isaiah 18 seems to refer to an Ethiopian nation as having some kind of kinship to Israel.  Jewish groups have popped up all over Africa, not just the Ethiopians and the Lemba, but only one claims in their oral history a Lost Tribes descent (The Igbo Jews).  One can be enough though since as I've said elsewhere only a minority of the Northern exiles kept worshiping Yahweh, the majority lost their national identity.

All this is just a historical curiosity, all who Believe in Jesus are the Spiritual Seed of Abraham, regardless of genetics.

The difference between who's geo-polticaly a Jew or Gentile in the New Heaven and New Earth is first of all irrelevant to The Church which will be New Jerusalem, as Paul said in Galatians no one in The Church is Jew or Gentile, Male or Female.  For the rest it's less an ancestry matter and more an if they were physically circumcised and voluntarily kept the Torah matter.

Update: September 3rd 2015.

80% of all Ashkenazim Jews are Y-Haplogroup J, R or E.  It's about the same with Sephardi Jews of Portugal.  And those 3 are common among other Jewish communities too.

Because during recent generations the Ashkenazim made up the majority of Jews (92% during WWI, more like 80 something % now), they are the ones most subject to conspiracy theories about their gene pool being tainted by people not actually from Israel.  But they have a smaller variety of Y-Chromosome Haplogroups among them then the Sephardi it seems. Comparing just to one fairly isolated Portuguese group, the Ashkenazim has only 5 while they have 7, 4 groups are shared by both.

It's strictly only certain sub groups of those Haplogroups affiliated with Jews, but given what I argued above I think that's enough to consider it possible all of those 3 Haologroups pater-lineal descendants of Abraham, as well as their siblings groups, which for E is D as shown above already.  For R is Q (which was mentioned above) being together Haplogroup P, Wikipedia says Haplogroup P through those two offshoots is ancestral of most people of both Europe and the Americas.  Q is also found in 5-7% of Ashkenazim Jews, which it turns out includes the Oppenheimer family.

Among Native Americans, both Y-Haplogroups C and Q can be found all over the Americas, but Q is more dominant everywhere but Alaska and northwest Canada.  I think at one time those weren't the only Y chromosomes represented, but various invasions from Ephraim/Q wiped out other tribes allowing only their pater-lineal lines to survive.

I'm thinking that J might be more likely to be descended from Ishmael then Jacob.  Yes it's very common among various Jews (but not any Lost Tribes canidates who went East), but that could come from the Hasmoneans forced conversion of the Idumeans (Dumah).  It's J1 (the same J subgroup linked with the Ashkenazim) that is most dominant on the Arabian Peninsula.  Also it's often forgotten the people of Osroene were a Nabatean offshoot, which can put Ishmaelite descent potentially into Armenia and maybe even the Kazzars.

J* is a rare Haplogroup that is mostly found on the Island of Soctotra, located just outside the Red Sea, off the coast of Yemen.  But it has observances in Greece and in India and Pakistan.  And it was fond among the Jews of the Island of Djerba in Tunisia.

J2 is apparently considered common among the earliest people of the Agean (possibly Pre-Hellenic, Pelesgians), and has a strong presence in Italy.  It could very well be Edom.

The sibling group of J is I.

Y-Haplogroup I looks like a strong candidate for Dan.  It has two Sub Groups, I1 is mostly in northern Europe and dominant in Scandanavia.  I2 is in central and southeastern Europe and dominant in Sardinia.  The Tuatha De Dannan cam from Northern Europe according to Irish mythology in 701 BC (according to Bill Cooper's After The Flood).  Sardinia also plays a key role in Dan speculation due to the Sherden of the Sea Peoples.

And again I remind people that lack of direct pate-lineal descent doesn't mean no descent.

Another Update

Upon further research I've noticed it's believed Y-Chromosome Haplogroup E had it's origin in Africa.  I know Evolutionists believe we all go back to Africa eventually (as opposed to The Middle East where The Bible places our origin), but Haplogroup E is currently still all over Africa, it's the most common and dominant Haplogroup in most parts of Africa actually, and it has the most variety in Africa.

Those among the Jews with Haplogroup E are all one subgroup, E1, a specific sub group of E1 actually, E1b1b.  This subgroup also has strong ties to Egypt (including the DNA test of Pharaoh Ramses III), and populations of Egyptians outside Egypt, as well as Ethiopia.

The Dogon are also E1, now a lot of fringe historians have twisted and misrepresented and outright lied about the Dogon's oral traditions to suit weird theories about Sirius.  But the claim that the Dogon descend from people who left Egypt around the time the Hycsos took over does seem fairly plausible.

Again I point out the Exodus account says many native Egyptians did join in the first Passover and left with the Israelites.  So DNA of Egyptian origin showing up among the population of Israel does make Biblical sense.  This would not mean the Jews who are Haplogroup E aren't descended from Jacob, just not directly pater-lineally.  Those people in time no doubt became absorbed into the 12 Tribes.

Only place outside Egypt where Haplogroup E is dominant is Greece, Greece is E3 not E1 but an Egyptian origin still seems most logical.  There are stories in Greek Mythology about how people from Egypt contributed to Greece early development, Cecrops and Danus.  There are of course reasons I've discussed elsewhere to see Israel, in particular Dan (but also Edom) playing a role in the truth of those myths.

I definitely still feel that deported Northern Israelites are the most logical explanation for Haplogorup E showing up East of the Tigris river, that the Beni Maneshe and Beni Ephriam have E backs that up.  Though Middle Eastern examples of Haplogroup E could also come from Canaanites, Philistines and the Sumerians who I believe were Cushite.

Haplogroup D which broke off from E exists solely in East Asia.

II Kings describes the Assyrians sending a Priest of Jeroboam's non Levite Priesthood back to Israel to help the people who would become known as the Samaritans worship who to them was the local God Yahweh.  The Priesthly clan of the Samaritans seem to belong to Haplogroup E1b1b, while the Jewish Levites seem to be Haplogroup R.

It is said Jeroboam made Priests of "the lowest of the people" it could be that unfortunately the descendants of the Egyptian converts once held the lowest social status in Israel.

Some of the theories about a Lost Tribes origin for Japan make it largely the specifically Priestly clans of Japan that are Israelite, I don't know if the Priestly clans are usually D rather then O or C, but if they are, that'd be very interesting.

Update Jan26: I've done my own post on the Japan theories.

Hosea the last King of the Northern Kingdom was not a son of any prior ruler, his tribal identity isn't given.  The fact that he did not continue the Sins of Jerboam would at first glance make it unlikely that he came from the Preistly Class Jeroboam set up.  But maybe if he was the first of that class to be King it would give him a motivation to reform things, to make it less dependent on Jeroboam's Idols.  Either way it wouldn't rule out the possibility of him sharing their Egyptian proselyte ancestry.

He didn't continue Jeroboam's Sin which was Idolatry.  But he still wasn't approved of by God.  Whether his evil was related to the form of worship he promoted or not we don't know.  Shintoism does not practice Idolatry in the strictest sense.

I'm familiar with the controversy surrounding Tutankhamen's DNA.  Apparently there was a study published saying he was Y-Haplogroup R1b1a2, a Haplogroup predominately affiliated with Europe.  But then it was possibly discredited.  Someone know's his Y-DNA since it's now considered proven he's a pater-lineal grandson of Amenhotep III (doesn't necessarily prove he's the son of Akhneton, there is the theory his father was Akhneton's brother).

Whether true or not the way both fringe Afro-centrists and Anglo-centrists have reacted to it shows how ignorant both are.  You have people who both think it's true and want to discredit it acting like it'd make him "mostly white".

Y-Chromosome DNA again can only trace pater-lineally.  While Tutankhamen's ancestry had a lot of incest, Amenhotep's recorded direct pater-lineal line only goes back to Tuthmosis I who I'm convinced from studying the evidence was not a son of Amenhotep I or any prior 17th or 18th Dynasty Pharaoh.

Y-Haplogroup R is one I feel has it's origins with Jacob or at least Abraham. Just as any Egyptian who put Blood on the Doorpost at the first Passover left with the Hebrews, so too did any Hebrew who didn't do that get left behind.  But also Tuthmosis lived soon after the Hycsos were driven out, given what we think about the Hycsos, maybe he descended from a bastard son of a Hycsos thus giving him pater-lineal descent from Esau, or an Ishmaelite tribe.

Point is the majority of Tuthmosis I's ancestry could still have been African.  And his ancestry would account for at most a fourth of Tutankhamen's due to Amenhotep's wife being the daughter of Yuya.  Likewise he can only account for half of Amenhotep III's ancestry.  Actually I'd forgotten Hatshepsut wasn't the mother of Tuthmosis III, so Tuthmosis I could only make up a fourth of Amenhotep III's and an eight of Tutankhamen's ancestry.

R1b is pretty common in Europe, just this specific sub group is the most common Y-Haplogroup in Western Europe, and present all over Europe.  92% in Wales, 85% is Ireland but 95% in parts of Ireland, and dominant in Scotland, Cornwall and parts of France, Spain and Northern Italy.  It's above 40% in Denmark and has minority presence in Greece an Macedonia.  So as much as I wanted to to be skeptical of British Israelism claims due to certain implications, I feel it is now fairly vindicated by the DNA.  But I still feel the Tribes going East is the key factor.

King Lois XIV of France belonged to Haplogroup R1b.  His direct pater-lineal ancestry can be viewed here.  It goes back to Robert of Hesbey who is also the patelrineal ancestor of the Valois and Bourbons.  He may descend from a daughter of Merovingian King Theuderic III.

Nicholas II of Russia was R1b too.  His paternal Ancestry is here.  Charles Darwin and thus his Grandfather Erasmus Darwin were also R1b.

But not all European Royalty was R1b,  Richard III was G2a.  His direct Pater-Lineal ancestry goes back to Fulk V of Anjou, King of Jerusalem during the Crusades.  And his goes back to Hugues du Perche.  Y-Haplogroup G is not one I'm currently willing to feel certain is definitively linked to Ancient Israel.  But G2c does exist at 7% among Ashkenazim, and 3.5 % among the Portuguese Jewish community I mentioned above.

Haplogroup R is considered uncommon among Shephardi and Middle Eastern Jewish populations and so the chief target of people saying the Ashkenazim are really Kazzars.  But R isn't as common in the Caucus region as it is Western Europe.  And almost 30% of those Portuguese Jews are R1b while over 1% are R1a, there are less among them then Haplogroup J but more then Haplogroup E.

If all or Most Jews with Haplogroup R were among those deported in 70 AD and after the bar-Kokhba revolt while other groups were less complete, it wouldn't be surprising since the deportations targeted certain areas over others.  The more troublesome areas.

Update February 4th 2016:  From reading more on Y-Chromosomal Aaron.  I must change my mind before about Y-Haplogroup J probably not including pater-lienal descent from Jacob.  It seems certain Aaron was Haplogroup J.  The Levites who are R seems to have their origin before the diaspora but probably later then the close of the Old Testament.

And likewise my certainty that Haplogroups R and Q are paternally from Jacob or even Abraham.  I'm still working on that.

Further Update Feb7th2016: Based on Bill Cooper's research in After The Flood chapter 3-5 and 8.  Haplogroup R being the dominant group of the Irish, Welsh, Cornish and Scottish means they should be either Javan or Magog.  He shows an early mingling of their lines but it's unclear which would be Pater-Lineal.

I do not share Cooper's certainly that Sceaf is Japheth (discussed in chapters 6-7) however, the Prose Edda says Sceaf descended from Memnon and a daughter of Priam, Memnon was a king of Aethiopia and thus possibly a Danite.  Thus Haplogroup I still being Dan.

Haplogroup N is one I'd like to see as Magog because of it's affiliation with the northern most parts of Russia.  And it has no presence in Greece unlike R.

Haplogroup O being the dominant group of the Javanese of Java has me thinking of it as a good candidate for Javan.

My hunch for now is that N is Magog, and O-R is Javan.  That includes Q which dominates the Americas.  Maybe I should rethink the idea that Tarshish was a New World nation?

I still don't think R and more rarely Q winding up in Jewish populations was solely because of the Diaspora, though that may have increased it.  There were many Greek prostylites during the Helenistic and Greco-Roman eras, like Nicolas of Antioch.  And they're mentioned in the Hebrew Bible enough to imply some pre-captivity contact.

October 2016:  I now think two Y Haplogroups descend from the mingling of Javan and Dan.  Yaplogroys-I being Pater-Lineally Dan, and the largest subgroup of R being pater-lineally Javan.

June 2017: Mitochondrial Eve

This may be the last time I add to this already overlarge post.

I've already talked about how Y-Chromosnal Adam would in fact be Noah at the earliest.  The odd thing is how it seems that Mitochondrial Eve lived more recently.  Creationist or Evolutionist model, that's not what one would naturally expect given how Human Reproduction works.

I have a theory I can't prove.  But I can't help but wonder if still Mitochondrial Eve can be identified in The Bible.

Chuck Missler likes to say that the Woman of Revelation 12 is Israel "In the sense that she starts with Eve".  I did a blog post where I argued that in a sense The Woman of Revelation 12 is Rachel.

I also already cited above evidence that Dinah wasn't Jacob's only Daughter.  Rachel bore Joseph right before they left Laban's house in Aram.  She gave dies giving birth to Benjamain.

It's unclear how much time passed in between, further complicated by me disagreeing with most commentators on when during Jacob's 20/21 year serving Laban Joseph was born.  To me the idea that Rachel had Joseph as soon as she married Jacob rendering the whole story of her angsting over not being able to conceive absurd.

I also think from analyzing that narrative, that Leah's children weren't born till he was married to Rachel.  So I think Reuben was older then Joseph by around 6 years, more then 5 but less then 7.

Reuben laying with Bilhah seemingly happens not long after Rachel died.  Which suggests enough time passed for Reuben to grow from 6 to at least 12 but probably older.  So plenty of time for Rachel to have had a few daughters in between her sons.  Perhaps she had at least one during the time at Shechem, and at least one during the time at Bethel.

Now one might ask "what about her having a Daughter before Joseph?"  Well knowing the patriarchal nature of the culture depicted in Genesis, it could be easy at first glance to think her Angst is over specifically not having a son.  And the word translated "children" in Genesis 30:1 is Ben and so could be translated more gender specifically if you wanted to.  But the language of things like "opening her Womb" leads me to conclude that indeed Joseph was her first child of any gender.  Also the word "barren" wouldn't be used of someone who was having daughters.  So her daughters would have been born in-between her sons.

Jar bearing the name of Ishbaal/Eshbaal found

http://news.discovery.com/history/archaeology/rare-inscription-bearing-biblical-name-found-in-israel-150616.htm

It's estimated to be about 3000 years old, putting it near the time of King David.  Main reason people are assuming it's unlikely to refer to the exact same Biblical Ishbaal is that he's Ben Beda rather then Ben Shaul.

Ancient Kings frequently had additional names, They would frequently take an additional name to their birth name when becoming king. Beda is observed in the linked article as rare and unusual.

The only similar word I found in the Strongs (908) means devised or feignest, or to invent.

Ishbaal's base of operations was east of the Jordan, but still it's presumed the entire North was loyal to him over David till he died.  This Jar was fond west of Jerusalem which was originally allotted to Benjamin, and Ishbaal was a Benjamite.

I favor the basics of the Velikovsky model over David Rohl.  It's interesting since we're talking about Ishbaal to note that Rohl's argument for Saul as Labaya of the Amarna Letters pointed out that Mutbaal has basically the identical meaning to Ishbaal/Eshbaal.

Maybe it's possible this Eshbaal is that Mutbaal?  At face value connecting Beda to Labaya seems more likely then to Saul.  But Mutbaal was also Transjordan based and without making an Ishbaal connection no reason to think he held authority west of the Jordan, or had any link to the territory of Benjamin.

This Eshbaal may indeed have no connection, but it's an interesting find.

Anakim and Egyptian Records

Egyptian Exercration Texts of the Middle Kingdom mention a list of enemies of Egypt in Canaan, among them are a group called the ly Anaq or "People of Anaq".  The three rulers of the ly Anaq were Erum, Abiyamimu, and Akirum.

Clearly these are the Anakim or "Sons of Anak" of The Bible.  It's interesting that they aren't refereed to later then the Middle Kingdom.  We believe The Exodus and Joshua's conquest of Canaan happened about when The Middle Kingdom ended, and that is indeed when the Anakim were driven out.

Joshua also refers to the Anakim having three leaders.  I do not not think Sheshai, Ahiman and Telmai were immediate sons of Anak, Anak and Arba it seems were ancestral figures of the Anakim and Kirjath-Arba.  It might be that they developed a Triarchial form of government, and so the three names from the Egyptian texts could be predecessors of the three named in The Bible when they are driven out.

But it's also not impossible that they are alternate names for the same three individuals.

What it means that the Anakim are called Nephlim is something I will be discussing in the future on one of my other blogs.  For now what's relevant here is Egyptian records verify their existence, and places them exactly when Revised Chronology predicts they would.

Nimrod and Ninus

I need to correct something I said in my last Nimrod post (I may eventually just go back and remove the relevant part).  In Genesis 10:11 it seems the confusion people see there is cleared up by realizing that it was only using the name Asshur geographically, the land that would become known by that name by the time of Moses, (every-time you see Assyria in the KJV it's Asshur in the Hebrew).

And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel and Erech, and Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar. Out of that land he went forth to Assyria, and built Nineveh and the city Rehoboth, and Calah, and Resen between Nineveh and Calah; the same is a great city.

In which case it does indeed seem to say Nimrod founded Nineveh.  The Geneva Bible seems to agree with this reading, so it's not just something modern translators came up with.  Nineveh is old enough to go back to the time of Enmerkar, it's Wikipedia page says it's first time of prominence was about 2900-2600 BC.

That does provide justification for identifying Ninus of Greek sources with Nimrod.  Problem is those Greek legends are still clearly highly corrupted and removed from the original story.

Ninus could derive from the Sumerian prefix(s) Nin or Nun.  It has been claimed that the deified form of Nimrod was Ninurta, a war and agriculture god who has been called a hunter.  Ninurta's daughter Ninsun was the mother of Bilgames which would justify making Gilgamos the grandson of Enmerkar as one Greek writer said.

Nineveh seems to be the only of the four Assyrian cities founded here that is still known by that name (and Moses may have only used the name he knew it by, not it's original one).  Nimrud however is a very modern name for that site, first applied to it in 1760 AD.  Nimrud was in antiquity called Kalhu, so it's clearly Calah.  Rehoboth-Ir is almost identical to the Hebrew phrase "rehovot ir", meaning "streets of the town" or "public square of the town", so it may not refer to a separate city at all but simply to Nineveh.  Verse 12 not mentioning it again but only Nineveh and Calah would further support that.  Resen hasn't been firmly identified, but Karemlash is a popular theory.  I personally don't think Asshur is one of the cities mentioned here, I think Asshur was founded by Asshur.

The Young's Literal Translation renders Genesis 10:11 as.

"from that land he hath gone out to Asshur, and buildeth Nineveh, even the broad places of the city, and Calah,"

My point that we don't really know the moral character of Nimrod remains, that especially means those who think Nimrod is The Antichrist need to accept they've built their arguments on a shaky foundation.  And that not every pagan heroic figure is code for Nimrod.  And Nimrod being deified by others later doesn't mean he himself approved of it.

On the subject of Semiramis.  Even if there was a wife or consort of Nimrod that inspired some of those Greek stories, that wasn't her name, that name comes from the 9th century BC Assyrian queen.  If the historical Nimrod was Enmerkar, then we should be looking for her in those legends.  But since The Bible doesn't mention a lover or offspring for Nimrod, (at least not identifying any person as such), we should never forget we're leaving The Bible when making such speculations.

Even the apocryphal texts like Jasher don't add an important consort for Nimrod to the mix.  "Jasher" makes Nimrod the same as Amraphel which is just stupid.

In the Enmerkar poems, which were written down generations after they take place, the conflict between Enmerkar and the Lord of Arrata seems to revolve around the goddess Inanna.  She seems to have been with the Lord of Aratta first but now has a fondness for Enmerkar.  While she at times seems annoyed by both kings acting like they can own her, she ultimately favors Enmerkar.  If she wasn't explicitly identified as a goddess, it would sound a lot like a love triangle.  In fact both kings do seek to refer to themselves as her true Bridegroom.

Maybe that's what it was, but the story became altered in the passing down as Inanna was deified.   Maybe the origin of the custom of the Ritual Marriage between the King of Uruk and Inanna via her High Priestess was that Inanna originally was the wife of the first king of Uruk.

It's possible that this process broke her role in the story into separate parts, both the goddess and mortal women in the stories who seem to function as agents of the goddess.  Mainly the "old woman" who defeats Aratta's magician and later marries Enmerkar.  Who some interpreters of the poems (ones who take them at face value not looking for a real history behind them) interpret wasn't literally old but being described as such for some mystical reason.

In the Greek historiography Semiramis is given a divine parentage but then is said to be raised by the shepherd Simmas.  I can't help but suspect Simmas could come from Shem.  And it also claims she was married to someone before Ninus but who that was I doubt the Greek sources got right.  Armenian legends claimed Semiramis married an Armenian king Aras after Ninus died, it might be out of patriotism that the Armenians switched the progression of her love life.

The important thing to remember here is just because the pagans told pagan stories about them doesn't mean they themselves were pagan.

Thera and Ice Core dateing

There is an article talking about how the Ice Core dating of Thera's eruption hurts Velikovsky.

I'm a creationist, and know full well the Science behind Ice Core dating is bunk. Same with Radiometric dating.  As well as Tree Ring dating.

The Ice Core dating of Thera has not been adequately acknowledged by Egyptian Chronologists for how it hurts conventional chronology.  If they acknowledged it, it would force them to move down the Hycsos period.  As talked about here.  That link seems to ignore Velikovsky's work on the Dark Ages of Greece showing there is a connection between Thera and revised Chronology.  It's also over all not a Creationist website.

Because I agree with Ussher's dates for David and Solomon's reigns my date for Thera's eruption would probably be a few decades before Velikovsky's.  950s BC would be during Solomon's reign from the timeline Velikovsky assumed I think.  I place Solomon's reign from 115 BC to 975 BC.

I as I said before I do not agree with or care for the Worlds in Collision premise, I'm just into the Revised Chronology.

Velikovsky and some of his later followers also argued the Minoan civilization lasted longer then the Mycenean civilization which can bring it down to the 7th Century BC.  But I'm not inclined to agree with making Tarshish the Minoan civilization.

The main synchronization is that the Eruption effected the Minoans during or very soon after the Hycsos period.  Anytime in the 11th Century BC could work I feel.

I've read a claim (from someone not trying to connect it to Thera) that the chronology of the Kings of Athens refers to a disaster happening around the time of the Death of it's last king Cordus around 1068/9 BC.  But I haven't yet been able to verify this.

Shem, Ham and Japheth

Tradition has usually worked under an assumption that Japheth = Europe, Ham = Africa and Shem = Asia.

Today there is a growing though still minority trend to line them up instead with modern (or rather Victorian) "racial" classifications as Japheth = Mongoloid, Ham = Negroid and Shem = Caucazoid.  This happens to be attractive to British Israelism and similar theories since Semites and Indo-Europeans (including White people) are both Caucazoid it can make the idea of Israelites becoming European seem less absurd then it does at face value.

I consider both those assumptions equally flawed.  Regardless however of what may or may not determine descent from Ham there is nothing wrong with being descended from Ham.

Before I elaborate I want to recommend everyone familiarize themselves with Ken Ham's explanation for how all the different "races" of people we see today could have all came from Noah and his sons.  His and other Creationists discussions of the subject are why I don't even like to use the word "race" we are all the Human Race, I prefer ethnicity when referring to these kinds of distinctions.  (I of course disagree with his hints at disapproving of Homosexuality but that's not the point of those discussions).

Everyone on the Ark and at the building of Babel I believe looked about the same (probably like Arabs) and had the same Genetic variability.

After they dispersed what determined the kinds of features they developed was mostly the climates of the regions they traveled to.  The darkest skinned people were those who first settled in the heart of Africa where it's the hottest.  The lightest skinned people come from those who settled in the north in the coldest regions.  I don't know why the climate and conditions in East Asia (and to a lesser extent the Americas possibly) would be where almond shaped eyes developed, but I'm sure there is a reason.

From the Biblical clues we have it was mostly Ham's offspring who went to Africa.  But if some Semites and Japhethites had went with them they'd have developed the exact same dark skinned features.  And likewise Hamites who settled in cold regions would have developed light skin.

Now over time loss of genetic information made it so it wouldn't be so easy for those features to change after migrating to a different region.  That is why today we have ethnically diverse populations living in the same locations.  But some groups might have maintained more genetic variability then others, especially those who are Medium Brown, and that can help explain why descendants of various Israelite Diasporas look so different from each other.

I said before that I don't believe Genesis 10 and 11 name all Noah's grandsons.  It just names the founders of various early tribes.  I also want to suggest that even the early groups those leaders lead were maybe not made up only of descendants of that one of Noah's grandsons and that they may even have included some people who's pater-lineal ancestry did not go back the same one of Noah's sons.

This is also important to understand when it comes to the desire of evolutionists to label Neanderthals or Homo-Floresiensis and other fossils as Non-Humans.  They clearly seem basically human but Evolutionists insist that have so many differences that don't fit our modern scientific definition of Human as a species.  Any examples that are petrified fossils were probably Pre-Flood and descendants of Adam and Eve but possibly not through Seth and Enosh.  But even ones that aren't petrified and so probably are from Noah might be people who developed distinct features that Noah's genetic potential had. But because they were not well known to enlightenment and Victorian era scientists who defined our modern "racial" distinctions were thus excluded from the modern definition of Human.  The fact remains that those people weren't "Ape like" either.

The problem with either simplistic way of defining descent from Shem, Ham and Japheth is that the Canaanites and probably also the Philistines are labeled by secular "racial" scientists as Semitic even though Biblically they are from Ham.  Likewise the primary nation identified with Shem's son Lud is classical Lydia which is not considered Semitic.

I think the early descendants of Aram's son Gether were the Gutians who some have argued became the Goths or at least some of the Goths.  I'm also open to theories about Edom and Dan contributing to the European gene pool.  But mostly I think the Lost Tribes went East. And I overall see the Indo-Europeans as mostly coming from Japhethite tribes, and very much recommend Bill Cooper's research in After The Flood.  In addition I recommend material out there about how Ashkenaz became the Aseir.

I definitely think Japheth also contributed greatly to Asia.  The Mongols and Huns seem to be among the descendants of Magog like the Scythians.

But let's look at the arguments for denying Japheth's traditional association with Europe/"White" people.

The association between Javan and Greece is the foundation of the traditional association of Japheth with Europe.  Greeks and other Mediterraneans are sometimes not considered to be "white" under the strictest definition today, but regardless they are definitely Indo-European.  Yavan was and still is the Hebrew name for Greece.  The Bible uses it in passages about Alexander The Great (Daniel 8 and 10-11) leaving no dispute the Aegean world is what's meant by it, not just the Ionians.

This new view argues that the original inhabitants of Greece were of Javan but that Semites displaced them eventually, Javan's name remained associated with the geographical region even though his offspring were no longer there.  The argument for that can be compelling when you have a thorough knowledge of Greek history and their myths about their pre-history and how they developed.  But not when they try to make it sound like one simple invasion or migration.

The Greeks themselves believed other people lived in their lands first.  Pelesgian was a name for one of the pre-Hellenic tribes that became a general term for all of them.  I've argued before that Pelesgians could have came from Pelegian, meaning of Peleg son of Heber of Shem.  But I also think the Arcadians could have came from the Arkite tribe of the Canaanites and the Sintians from the Sinite tribe of the Canaanites.

That however makes it look like the non-Japhethites were the ones who came first.  Well it gets more complicated.  The Javanites no doubt came after these people but before the proper "Heroic Age" of Greek mythology, which conventionally correlates with the Mycenaean age Archaeologically.  But we believe the Mycenaean age should be moved down, and that the myths associated with the Heroic age had when they took place confused by Homer and Hesiod and others re-imagining them during the Classical period.

The Heroic Age can be said to begin with Cecrops founding or refunding Athens.  That event being dated to 1556 BC I don't think should change because that's based on the ancient chronology of the Kings and Archons of Athens which is pretty solid and unbroken.  This means I place Theseus (a later king of Athens) during the Minoan rather then Mycenaean period.  This makes perfect sense with the context of the myth (the origin story part of it at least).  It is about Greece being subject to a Cretan tyrant.  In some versions Cecrops came from Egypt but not always, in my chronology this was likely during the Hycsos period of Egypt.  Since I lean towards dating the death of Joshua to 1557 BC.

I have seen two references to placing Theseus in the 800s BC, neither gave a reason and I suspect they were just pure fiction.  But both were in the context of specifically Theseus interactions with the Amazons.

Later between 1490-1450 BC Cadmus and Dannus lead what I think were likely Edomite migrations into Greece.  Whether or not those dates should be changed I'm unsure.  But all those were isolated to specific parts and clearly were always mingling with those already there.  Ultimately Italy is where Edom mainly settled.

Some people think Rhodes is the only Greek location the Dodonim should be linked to.  I disagree with identifying Dodonim with Dardanus, but there is a location on the Greek Peninsula called Dodona.

Madai is the ancestor of the Medes and the Medes are indeed Indo-European, they seem to be the root of the Indo half.  But British Israelists may be inclined to argue that they became "Indo-European" because the Cities of the Medes were where many Northern Israelites were taken in II Kings 17.  However that their language was Indo-Eurpean seems to be pretty firmly established well before that.

The new theory will try to argue for connecting Javan to Eastern peoples by linking Javan to names like Yuan.  Or even arguing that Japan came from Javan via the V becoming a B (which does happen) and the B later becoming a P.  (Problem is Nippon is what the Japanese call themselves)  There is also the Javanese People to consider.  One could also try to use the Yavanas of the Mahabarata as evidence of Javan in India, but the Mahabarata is not as old as Ancient Aliens says it is, it's post Alexander The Great.

I agree entirely with Bill Cooper that the name Iapetos/Iapetus/Japetus in Greek mythology comes from Japheth.  Iapetos was an ancestral deity, but Greek mythology as we know it has confused things and he is made an ancestor of the Flood survivor rather then his son.  Iapetos is also a Titan, and it is believed by many scholars that the Titans were the gods of the Pre-Hellenic inhabitants of the Aegean and that the Olympians overthrowing The Titans is a myth that allegorises the change in pantheon.  Iapetos wife in some myths was named Asia.

So the argument can become very compelling.  The problem is it begins with the flawed assumption that what we label Oriental ethnic features is the sign of descent from Japheth.  And no ancient depictions I know of can justify saying that Ancient Greece was ever inhabited by people with Almond shaped eyes.  Whether or not there is a kinship between some of the early tribes of Ancient Greece and many Far Eastern peoples, it would still say nothing about what Ethnic features prove.

While I believe Japheth contributed to the Asiatic gene pool, so did the other two.  The Early Chinese I believe likely have a connection to the Sinite tribe, one Psalm calls the Chinese the Sinim.  I also think there was a major Semtic contribution, I don't think Joktan's sons were limited to Arabia, I agree that the name Yucatan could come from Joktan.  But not how that argument is used by Mormons and people wanting to put Ophir in Peru.

Tarshish is interesting.  I agree largley with the argument that Tarshish is Britain, Chuck Missler makes a good argument there, Herodotus says Tarshish was beyond the Pillars of Herakles (Straight of Gibraltar).  I think the cities in Spain and Turkey people like to point to were merely outposts.

Some insist that the Tarshish in Solomon and Jehoshaphat's times were in the East rather then West because of leaving for it via the Red Sea.  It could be because this was an unusual Tarshish linked mission involving Ophir in Arabia that they circumnavigated Africa.

Arguing that Tarshsish is Japan doesn't work because even Japan's possibly exaggerated mythological history doesn't have their Nation being founded until the 7th Century BC.  Well after both Solomon and Jehoshaphat.

It could also be this early British sea faring nation had outposts in South Africa or Madagascar.

Advocates of this modern theory will say that Genesis 9 foretells Japheth being enlarged and thus we should identify him with the world's largest populations.  Enlarged there could also mean Geo-Political influence however.  In that context Genesis 9 was abused to support European Imperialism and Slavery.

When it comes to being foretold that the number of individuals descended from you would be a large number, that's mainly Abraham and his decedents.  Genesis 12 and 15 talk about his Seed being as the stars in Heaven, which is in turn compared to the sands of the seashore.  Rebecca was foretold to be ancestral to Thousands of Millions.  In Genesis 35 Jacob is told a company of Nations would come out of him.  In Genesis 48 Ephraim also was told a "multitude of nations" would come out of him. In Deuteronomy 33, Reuben's blessing says "Let not his men be few" and God promises to bless them that enlarge Gad.

So this factors into my view I already linked to that the Lost Tribes went East.