He left a comment on the very first post of this blog. And I commented on him briefly in the my theory on the Amazons and Dan. I find some of his research useful but much of it is a stretch. For those who don’t know, on Britam and some other sites he’s talked about parallels between Greek Mythology and Biblical stories to tie those into Lost Tribes speculation.
One mistake that clouds much of his research is accepting the identification of the so called “Hittites” of anatolia with the Biblical Hittites. The Biblical Hittites were located around Hebron and worshiped the same gods as the Sidonians, hence not having their Idol named in 1 Kings 11. The Hittites of Anatolia I think were descendants of either Lud, Japheth or people who had previously been in Mesopotamia, perhaps from Aram or Arphaxad. They did not have the characteristics of Canaanites.
He is also guilty of many common mistakes regarding how Cyrus and the Magi related to Zoroastrianism. Cyrus worshiped Mithra, he was never a follower of Zoroaster. And the Magi like Astyages were originally the enemies of Zoroastrianism. But I think all three may descend from the deportation of the Northern Kingdom. The Magi I think came from either Jeorboam’s non Levitical Priesthood and/or the Kenites who Balaam foretold would also be carried away by Asshur. Zarathustra I think was probably a Naphtalite seeking to create his own new doctrine. And Cyrus like other Persians and Iranians I think descended from Ephraimites like the Eranite clan.
His argument for Sisyphus as Joseph is more about the House of Joseph in general. In which case I think the main individual in mind is more so Jeroboam. For one thing Sisyphus is pretty much vilified in Greek myths. I don’t see descendants of Joseph doing that to Joseph, but maybe in time they would Jeroboam. But since Jeroboam’s male line was wiped out, I think all or most supposed sons of Sisyphus in Greek Mythology were other chiefs of Ephraim and/or Manasseh.
I should note Corinth was not the city in Greece called Ephrya, there was also an Ephrya in Elis. And since we move down the time where Sisyphus and his successors supposedly lived, to when we have an unbroken line of Historical Corinthian kings back to 1069 BC. I think originally Sisyphus wasn’t linked to Corinth at all but, like other figures I shall discus here, in Elis.
The oldest sources give Aeolus only four sons. Sisyphus, Amathas, Salmoneus and Cretheus. But in time other brothers would be added to this group. He hasn’t said much I’ve seen on Cretheus, I shall get to him while discussing Salmoneus.
Aeolus was one of three sons of Hellen, from whom came three tribes of Ancient Greece, the Aeolians, the Dorians from Dorus, and the Acheans from the son of Xuthus. The Dorian “invasion” is usually dated to the 1100s BC, but under revised Chronology that can be moved down to the 600s and early 500s BC. Xuthus adopting Ion progenitor of the Ionians I think is a mythical explanation for the descendants of Javan being intermingled with Israelite Sea Peoples. And maybe a reflection of other Biblical themes of Gentiles being adopted into the Tents of Shem, starting with Japheth in Genesis 9.
I associate the Sea Peoples with four tribes, but two are a pair of tribes often linked. So I think these three tribes of the Hellenes equate to Manasseh (from Joseph), Asher, and Zebulun&Issachar.
Britam when arguing the Anglo-Saxons came from Joseph, argues the name Angle somehow comes from Aegel, the Hebrew word for Bullock used in Jeremiah 31:18 using the Bullock as a symbol of Joseph. That feels like a stretch to me, but at any rate I could argue Aeolus/Aiolos and Aeolians could come from Aegel just as easily. Later on here I will argue for a descendant of Aeolus being the husband of Europa, as well as for Anglo-Saxon royalty descending from Aeolus via their claimed descent from Odin.
Salverda argues the myths of Salmoneus to come from both Judah in Genesis 38, and Solomon, called Salomon in the Septuagint. (Salmoneus as Solomon I’ve commented on before in the context of the Song of Solomon.) The Genesis 38 connection is based entirely on arguing a parallel between Tyro and Tamar. I think Tamar’s story may have influenced the Embellishment of Tyro’s story. But Solomon we are told had two daughters in 1 Kings 4:11&15, I think Tyro is possibly both of them merged together.
For starters her stepmother Sidero could be a Sidonian wife of Solomon. The mother of Tyro was said to be an Arcadian. I believe the Arcadians of Greece were the Arkite tribe of Canaan. But for this myth it could easily refer to a Hittite or Sidonian wife of Solomon, the ones who were Canaanites.
Ben-Abinadab who was appointed governor of Dor married Taphath. I think in her we have Tyro as the lover of Enipeus. Enipeus was a river god, but Tyro never got to lie with him, but rather Poseidon disguised as him. I’ve read the Greeks often associated Poseidon specifically with the Mediterranean Sea, Dor was a Mediterranean coastal city, but it was also near a river. Remember that Dor also comes up discussing the Sea Peoples, and some want to link the Dorians to Dor.
Dor is often presumed to be in the land given to Western Manasseh, but some of these borders shifted over time quite a bit (Shechem was originally allotted to Ephraim but is also on Maps often in Manasseh). Dor is close to Zebulun, and Genesis 49 and Deuteronomy 33 foretell Zebulun would be a sea port. Zebulun is often inseparable from Issachar, wouldn’t surprise me if Baasha was a descendant of Taphath and Zebulun via his mother or grandmother. Zebulun is otherwise not mentioned in 1 Kings 4, and Western Manasseh does have other governors here.
Ahimaaz in Naphtali was married to Basemath. Because the name Basemath is given to wives of Esau in Genesis, I suspect this was the daughter of an Edomite wife of Solomon. But one Basemath married to Esau was also a Hittite. In my post on The Widow’s Son, I discussed how Hiram’s Danite mother was probably first married to a Naphtalite. And I suspected that she had born him a son before he died and had Hiram with a man of Tyre. Maybe Ahimaaz is that son? And Cretheus becomes known as the brother of Salmoneus because he was a Brother of the Architect of Solomon’s Temple? Naphtali was the other son of Dan’s mother Bilhah, and once Dan moved north he bordered Naphtali. Cretheus came up in my post on the Amazons and Dan.
Cretheus is said to have had another wife also, this might be just a result of Tyro being two different women merged together. Cretheus had daughters, usually not attributed to Tyro, two have names common among the Amazons (and the name Myrina in addition to an Amazon connection was also possibly the wife of Dardanus an ancestor of Trojan royalty). And a third is the unnamed wife of Tectamus son of Dorus, and mother of the husband of Europa.
It could also be the story of Tyro later marrying Sisyphus is based on both these being parts of Israel that went with Jeroboam. And the story of her killing her sons by Sisyphus from the male line of Jeroboam being extinguished, chiefly by Baasha.
Or maybe Tyro is just one of these daughters, and the pagan mythology wanted to give divine parentage to two sons who really had the same father as the others. All the sons of Tyro by either are linked to Thessaly. But it’s also said Thessaly is where the Dorians were before migrating to the Peloponnese. Joshua associates Dor with three Tribes, Manasseh, Asher and Issachar. But logically Issachar’s connection could only be via his relationship with Zebulun, since Zebulun was east of Dor but west of Issachar. Maybe Cretheus/Ben-Abinadab as a brother of Sisyphus was a Manasseite, while the line of Dorus was either Asher and/or Zebulun.
It might also be that the Taphians of Greek mythology were named after Taphath.
Salmoneus’s Kingdom was placed in Elis in Greek Mythology, a region in the Western Peloponnese where Mt Olympus also was. The first King of Elis is sometimes said to be Aethilus, who was sometimes a son of Zeus, but sometimes another son of Aeolus. Other times Endymion is the first king of Elis. Endymion is sometimes the son of Zeus and sometimes of Aethilus.
Endymion being both a Shepherd and a King makes me think of David. Endymion was the lover of the Moon, Selene. One of David’s wives was Avital whose name means “Father of the Dew” a fitting title for the Moon. Avital was a wife married at Hebron in Judah. The Jerehmeelites were a clan of Judah near Hebron who we know David had good relations with. And the name Jerehmeel could come partly from Jerah the Hebrew name for the Moon. So maybe Avital was a Jerehmeelite? Endymion had other wives also. The name of Elis could come from David’s son Elishua. The name Eleius could also be related to Elishua, Eleius in Greek mythology was a maternal grandson of Endymion.
Pelops also ruled in Elis who I’ll talk more about latter.
While many mythical figures of Elis seem linkable to both the House of David and Ephraim. The people of Elis in general are sometimes described almost like the Levites of Ancient Greece. Like in Diodorus Siculus.
“Since the Eleans were becoming a numerous people and were governing themselves in accordance with law, the Lacedaemonians viewed their growing power with suspicion and assisted them in establishing a settled mode of life for the community, in order that they might enjoy the benefits of peace and never experience the activities of war. 2 And they made the Eleans sacred to the god,1 with the concurrence of practically the whole Greek world. As a consequence the Eleans took no part in the campaign against Xerxes, but they were relieved of service because of their responsibility for the honour due to the god, and further, in like struggles, when the Greeks were warring among themselves, no state caused them any annoyance, since all Greek states were zealous to preserve the sanctity and inviolability of the land and city. Many generations later, however, the Eleans also began to join in campaigns and to enter upon wars of their own choosing.
The Eleans took no part in the wars in which all the rest of the Greeks shared. In fact, when Xerxes advanced against the Greeks with so many myriads of soldiers, the allies relieved them of service in the field, the leaders instructing them that they would be returning a greater service if they should undertake responsibility for the honour due to the gods.”
But remember, Jeroboam created his own Non-Levitical Priesthood. Among the later Priesthoods I think descended from Jeroboam’s are the Magi mentioned here already, the Priestly class of Japan, and of course the supposed Levites of the modern Samaritans. Many of these groups can be linked to Y-Chromosomal Haplogroup E, or D which came out of E. E is also the dominant Haplogroup in Greece. Meanwhile the genetically confirmed descendants of Aaron are in Y-Chromosomal Haplogroup J.
Salverda also argues for those Israelites who went west by sea starting to do so even before the Northern Kingdom fell. And that is valid, again Zebulun (from whom came the Sardites) was foretold to be sea farers. I don’t identify the Sea Peoples with all of the Northern Kingdom or even all areas not deported, but mainly the coastal regions. When you think about it, the Book of Jonah implies even the port of Joppa was in the Northern Kingdom. I also think after the first deportation in 745 BC, that Samaria become barely more than a City State controlling not even all of Ephraim. Salverda argued Israelites might have been included in how the Greeks defined Phoneceans. I also think they were included among the Pelasgians as descendants of Peleg.
Salverda also argues for parallels between Ahab and Pelops. But here more than anywhere else he strongly argues that that the Greeks families said to descend from him actually descend from the Biblical figure in question, in seemingly the exact equivalent amount of time (since he supports a Revised Chronology date for Pelops, making him contemporary with the first Olympiad, 776 BC). The problem with the last part is the descendants of Ahab were wiped out. But some argued similarities between Ahab and Pelops are interesting.
I think there was an historical Tantalus and Pelops as separate figures who first lived among Israelite colonists in Ionia around 830-800 BC. And then Pelops migrated to Elis and Olympus by 776 BC And that maybe stories about Ahab (who I place in the early 800s close to 900 BC) got applied to them later.
It is of course entirely possible that ambitious Israelites who were not descended from Ahab might have claimed they were. And in so doing sought to imitate accomplishments of Ahab, and encourage other similarities to be emphasized.
Homer can’t be Omri because I agree with dating Homer to the time of Gyges of Lydia. I have argued that Gyges of Lydia is Gog ben Joel of the Tribe of Reuben deported by Assyria in 1 Chronicles 5.
Salverda argues two Greek parallels for both Naboth and Elijah. In the case of Naboth he unfortunately didn’t lead with the stronger case. Stymphalus’s proposed parallel to Naboth is fairly solid, while with Oenomaus he’s stretching things a bit.
As the father of his Jezebel figure, I don’t know why he didn’t just argue Oenomaus was Ithobaal/Ethbaal the father of Jezebel? It could be the part about Pelops killing him was just a result of the necessity of changing the geography of the story. And/or simply that the Greeks liked stories of someone taking over a kingdom by marrying the Princess. Ahab did set up his capital not where his father’s was but at Jezreel, much closer to Tyre then other capitals.
Oenomaus’s wife and presumed mother of Hippodamia is said sometimes to be a daughter of Danaus and sometimes of Acrisius, who himself descended from the Danoi. We know from the Bible intermarriages between Sidonians and Danites were common.
According to Meander as quoted by Josephus, Ithobaal like Oenomaus didn’t descend from an earlier line of kings. He was a Priest of Astarte who took over the Kingdom. Maybe he descended from the Priesthood of Micah’s Idol that was located in Lebanon and strongly linked to Dan.
On the other hand Myrtilus resembles Elijah better than Aeacus. Aeacus is linked to the end of the drought but not its start. Aeacus is perhaps a better parallel to Obadiah in 1 Kings 18. The Myrtilus=Elijah argument can also seem like a stretch. But now that I know there is a Chariot constellation linked to stories like Elijah’s, it adds new context to my theory that Enoch and Elijah were taken to a planet orbiting another Star to prepare them for their time as the Two Witnesses of Revelation 11. His basis for reading a Chariot race into Elijah’s story is the ending of 1 Kings 18.
Salverda’s Pegasus=Moses connection I don’t agree with. The parallel to Moses in the Basket is like Sargon and other Pagan versions of that motif, in having it be a child of Royalty raised with a humble childhood, rather than a child of slaves raised as royalty. If Perseus is based on a Biblical story, it’s Jonah’s, but with the Greeks moving the geography of the story backwards.
Connected to both that and his Sisyphus premise is Bellerophon as Joshua. First off he thinks that Pegasus was originally with Perseus and added to Bellerophon’s story later, the actual development of Greek mythology was the opposite. Pegasus was in origin Bellerophon’s horse, Perseus is having anything to do with Pegasus is a very late development.
I have a feeling Bellerophon could be Jehu. Jehu’s dynasty was the only one besides Jeroboam’s we know was from Joseph, but he was Manasseh rather than Ephraim. Jehu too started his story east of the Jordan as a captain in Ramoth-GIlead. It’s possible those in ancient Israel who told his story in a more positive POV then II Kings wanted to hype any potential parallels to Joshua. And Bellerophon attempted to conquer Olympus, the Kingdom of Pelops though the myth as it’s survived doesn’t connect that to the human government in the area. Bellerophon’s attempt to seize Olympus ends in failure, but perhaps that’s just the Greek version of the story being preserved mostly through a party favorable to Jezebel’s form of worship.
The proposed meaning of Bellerphon being "Slayer of Beliar" I think also fits Josiah better, who specifically stamped out the worship of Baal.
The proposed meaning of Bellerphon being "Slayer of Beliar" I think also fits Josiah better, who specifically stamped out the worship of Baal.
Salverda also compares Acrisius and Proetus to Jacob and Esau. The similarity of striving in their mother’s womb I’d noticed on my own. But Salverda sees Acrisius as Jacob and Proetus as Esau. I find that off, if these Greeks mainly descended from Jacob then why would he be the one vilified in the story? But I have argued before that the Danoi could also have an Edomite connection via the Hyksos. What I find odd here is Salverda suggesting Acrisius is Jacob, but not noticing how he like Jacob has a daughter whose name is a feminine form of Dan.
What isn’t well known is that in some sources it wasn’t Zeus who impregnated Danae with Perseus, but rather Proetus her uncle. Abas is said to have had two other children, Lyrcos and Idomene, his only daughter. Biblically Esau certainly didn’t marry or reproduce with Dinah, but one of his sons could have.
Salverda also brings up Velikovsky’s Oedipus and Akhnaton theory. I don’t have that book yet as I’m writing the first draft of this, but I’ve ordered it off Amazon and so may read it before I finish this. Reading about the theory online is complicated by many people today who want to also throw the Akhnaton is Moses nonsense into it.
Even if I did believe in conventional Egyptian Chronology, or any chronology that could make Akhenaton and Moses contemporaries, I wouldn’t believe they were the same person. Why would the Hebrew sources downplay Moses status by leaving out that he had been Pharaoh? They didn’t hesitate to make him seem like a potential heir to the throne.
If I were hypothetically willing to consider such a chronology, it would be easier to argue Akhenaten's brother Tuthmose was Moses (and Ralph Elis has already done that). Some argue the name of Yah comes from Ah/Iah the Egyptian name for the Moon parallel to Aten as a name for the Sun. There would be symmetry to seeing one brother starting a Solar cult and the other a Lunar cult. I of course have argued against that origin for Yah elsewhere. But the god Toth is also linked to the Moon, and Slaverda sees Hermes as partly based on Moses. The Hellenists identified Hermes with Toth, So Tuthmose as a name for Moses can look pretty attractive. We don’t have Tuthmose’s body so he could have been a son by adoption for all we know, (but if he was then that rules him out as the father of Tutankhamun who we know via DNA was a patrilineal biological grandson of Amenhotep III).
But I don’t believe in mainstream Chronology, I place Akhnaton during the divided Kingdom. So back to Oedipus and Akhnaton.
The theory is easier to make sense of when I explain it like this. Some Greek travelers in Egypt or a nearby land heard Akhnaton’s story, probably already distorted since they tried erase his memory. And so the story was told in Greece, and at some point got adapted to play out as if it took place in Greece, like moving the setting of Death Note from Japan to Seattle.
It also involves identifying Laius with Amenhotep III, Jocasta with Tiye, and I would assume Creon with Ay and Yuya with Menoeceus. The name Menoeceus is assumed to come from Menos meaning strength and Oicos meaning House. But since Yuya was also the Prophet of the god Min, and Menos could make sense as a Greek transliteration of Min, the name could be reinterpreted as House of Min.
It seems the oldest versions of the Oedipus story don’t involve him going blind, and also probably not him living in exile during the reigns of his sons either. But Velikovsky sought parallels for those in Akhnaton’s biography also.
One thing we now know Velikovsky was wrong on here was Tutankhamun being the son of Tiye and Akhnaton. We know from DNA that Tutankhamun’s mother was a woman’s who’s mummy we have but don’t know her name. And she was the daughter of Tiye and Amenhotep III. And his father we know would have been a son of Amenhotep III, but since we have the mummies of none of his sons, we can’t be certain which one. Amenhotep III did marry some of his daughters, so Akhnaton may have likely married a few women his father was also married to. Due to Egypt being Patriarchal yet mateirlianel for succession, the Pharaoh was encouraged to marry all the women in his family.
Now that I have the book, I note that Velikovsky discussed how in different versions of the Oedipus legend he had other wives and Jocasta was not always the mother of the children, or at least not all of them. And he also mentions an obscure reference to Oedipus being called Son of Helios, as Akhnaton was called the Son of Aten.
The sons of Oedipus agreeing at first to share the throne by rotating was perhaps an attempt by the Greeks to translate to a City-State setting an arrangement to divide Egypt between two kings via Upper and Lower Egypt.
The argument as I understand it so far mostly comes down to finding a basis for many details of the Oedipus legend in the history of Akhnaton, right down to the meaning of Oedipus (Swollen feet). But I haven’t heard of any example of the most notable thing Akhnaton did being associated with Oedipus, a major controversial religious reform.
It’s of course possible to see it just thematically in how Oedipus can be seen as trying to subvert the will of the gods (the story as we know it developed when Educated Greeks were already inventing proto-Calvanism). Tiresias could represent the religious establishment of the old gods. And since Royal Incest wasn’t a problem in Egypt the Greek story clearly changed the central conflict.
The book is not branded as part of the Ages in Chaos series cause it’s only tangentially related. Number 1 a Greek adaptation of a story need not make sense timeline wise anyway. But Number 2 Oedipus also is traditionally placed in an older era then when Velikovsky places Akhnaton. Velikovsky ties in the Revised the Chronology only by saying Cadmus founder of the Greek Thebes must have lived later than the myths said based on how we know the Greek language developed. But at the same time the whole premise of the theory weakens Oedipus’s connection to Cadmus (Velikovsky didn’t try to make all the Greek Thebans 18th Dynasty rulers) anyway. So you could believe this while believing in conventional chronology, thus some people now also tying the Moses identification into it.
Salverda however ties this into his Pelops as Ahab identification, since Laius had relations with Pelops.
Velikovsky in Ages in Chaos volume 1 places the Amarna period (last 10 years of Amenhotep III, entire reign of Akhnaton, and some of the period following his reign) during what is Biblically the Reign of Jehoram of Israel. But he did so while arguing Jehoram of Israel didn’t exist, because two Jehorams at the same time is too coincidental I guess, and that Ahab had a longer reign. I objected to his arguments on that in my first Amarna post. Today I want to add that even if I were willing to hypothetically consider The Biblical text corrupt, it would be the Jehoram of Judah who would be easier to argue didn’t exist as a separate person. That he represents a period during which Jehoram of Israel annexed Judah, and later placed his Crown Prince in charge of Judah, and that he’d married his Sister as many ancient Kings did. Fortunately we have the Tel Dan Stele to verify two different Jehorams did exist, and that one was of Omri and one was of David.
Back on topic, in that timeline the early reign of Amenhotep III, and also later reign of Tuthmosis IV, would probably be contemporary with Ahab. Fitting Salverda’s identifications well. Things is I proposed a chronology for the 18th Dynasty a few decades different from Velikovsky's. Where I identify Omri with Labaya, and in a new context possibly Ahab with the same Amarna King Velikovsky did. And so the rulers in Israel during the time of transition from Tuthmosis IV to Amenhotep III would be Asa in Judah, and Baasha in the North. It may be the Pelops cycle developed well before the Oedipus cycle, and the Oedipus story just chose the first ruler of that kingdom they thought of.
However that was one of two chronologies I proposed in that 18th Dynasty post. The second was one that allows the 19th dynasty to immediately follow the 18th, while still placing the 19th when Velikovsky placed it. It makes Labaya one of the later Northern Kingdom rulers, like Menahem.
And now as I’ve been reading more into the Oedipus and Akhnaton theory, I’ve come to see ways to make that fit. First I read this article doing the opposite of my theory, moving the 19th Dynasty from Velikovsky's position to immediately follow his dates for the 18, while using the Oedipus and Akhnaton theory. What’s interesting is how it uses much of Velikovsky's evidence for Horemheb being an Assyrian vassal, but while arguing for an earlier Assyrian conquest of Egypt.
Velikovsky treated Horemheb as the first 19th rather than last 18th Dynasty ruler. His timeline for Horemheb is complicated, giving in a sense up to 58 years of rule. When arguing for his date for Troy he emphasis Taharqa as the Pharaoh at that time. But he also arguably has Horemheb in power at the same time.
I don’t believe Taharqa was Memnon as Velikovsky seemed to. Taharqa was too busy dealing with Assyria to go to Troy. When Esarhaddon conquered Egypt in 671 BC, he took many Nubians/Kushites into captivity, including relatives of Taharqa, but not Taharqa himself who fled south. I think Memnon was a leader of these deported Kushites. And they might have been mingled with others who’s been carried into captivity by Assyria. I’ve speculated on reasons to see Memnon and his brother Emathion like other Aethiopians of Greek mythology as possibly Israelites. Interestingly the Prose Edda also makes Memnon an ancestor of Odin, which can tie into my England and Egypt post.
I think originally Memnon being called a son of Eos was just an idiom of him coming from the East. This is confused by him also being linked to the area of Mount Atlas. It’s interesting to remember how Salverta suggests Mount Atlas is sometimes a Greek memory of Sinai. The parents of Memnon and Emathion are said to be Tithonis and Eos. But Tithonis himself is said to be a son of Eos by Kephalos/Cephalus. Cephalus was in some sources the son of Deion/Deioneus, another additional son of Aeolus.
Back to Egypt and Troy. Neither Velikivosky or this other site I linked to argue for someone in the myths surrounding what happened in Thebes after Oedipus to be Horemheb. But my noting a possible connection to the Trojan war makes Peneleos seem the most likely candidate. He’s sometimes referred to as only a Regent but so is Creon. The Grandchildren and Great-Grandchildren of Oedipus are the most likely characters to be completely made up in the Greek story.
And it’s only logical, that if the enemies of Assyria were on the side of Troy, that an ally of Assyria might have fought against Troy. And Peneleos did fight against Troy. Peneleos was called the son of Hippalcimus and Asterope. Another Hippalcimus was a son of Pelops and Hippodamia.
You might think, “it is precisely in the era of the Trojan War that Greek Thebes and Egyptian Thebes are separate”. Because Homer also referred to a Polybus as lord of “Pharan Thebes” and his wife Alcandra. But again, Egypt was complicated at this time. Maybe Polybus was Taharqa? But as I read the Odyssey closer, arguably it’s not quite calling Polybus king, but as someone the wealthy of Thebes obey. I’ve seen it talked often about how the Priests of Amun at Thebes were very powerful, sometimes seemingly as powerful as Kings.
Interestingly though, another Polybus in Greek Mythology was the stepfather of Oedipus, who was a king of nearby Corinth.
Now to return again to the subject of Pelops as a contemporary of Laius/Amenhotep III. And if Pelops could be viewed as a Northern Kingdom figure. If Menahem was Labya, since he reigned only 10 years, and the reigns right before his were short too. Jeroboam II of the House of Jehu is in power at the right time.
Shalmaneser III called Jehu the Son of Omri. And unlike most I think that could be literally true (literal at least in Son as Descendant). I’ve argued before that Ahab not Omri was foretold to have his male line wiped out. So I think the Grandfather of Jehu could have been a brother of Ahab. Or maybe he descended from Omri via his mother. But generationally Jehu is at the right time to be a Great-Grandson rather then Grandson, having overthrown the son of Ahab.
More than one scholar has dated Jeroboam II such that he reigned through the entire 770s BC. So indeed a contemporary of the first Olympiad. Though Bishop Ussher had his reign end when others have it begin. Similar to Floyd N. Jones dates for King Zachariah, last king of the House of Jehu. The house of Jehu does not have a prophecy of it’s male lines being blotted out as Jeroboam, Baasha and Ahab had, so this line could have continued. Interestingly none of the notable sons of Pelops in Greek mythology ruled the same Kingdom he did, they all emerged elsewhere.
We don’t have the mummy of Horemheb. Maybe he was of mixed ancestry and could have been the grandson of a king of Israel? Menahem was allied with Assyria, but also avenged the usurper of the House Jehu by killing the Usurper who killed Zechariah. So maybe the Heirs of Jehu were on good terms with Assyria, Jehu himself did bow to Shalmaneser III.
Maybe the argued parallels between Pelops and Ahab could also apply to Jehu and his Heirs? Jehu also did notable things with Chariots. Maybe Oenomaus was Jehoram. Elsewhere Salverda likes to make the women in these stories female embodiments of nations. In which case maybe Hippodamia was Jezreel and/or Samaria? Hosea has a Prophecy I’ve long seen as having possible End TImes relevance that YHWH will avenge the Blood of Jezreel against the House of Jehu. Salverda leaves out that Pelops eventually banished Hippodamia and two of her sons, the two who become kings of Argos and Mycenae, one of whom being Atreus father of the Atredes. Maybe this is a distorted memory of the Exile? And perhap Chrysippus is Zechariah in that context.
I see Jehu more so then Ahab as a type of the Antichrist, since like Chris White I think the Antichrist may claim to be Messiah Ben-Joseph. I also see Muadib of Dune as a fictional type of the Antichrist. Muadib was of the house of Atredes.
Going back to Memnon in the Prose Edda. Some people question if Memnon was in fact who’s meant. The spelling it uses is “Munon or Mennon”, which could instead refer to Menon, a Trojan soldier mentioned in The Iliad. In Greek translations of the Old Testament the Hebrew name Menahem sometimes becomes Manaem or Manaen. Luke 3 has a Menan son of Matthias son of Nathan son of David, which is find interesting in light of the Rabbinic tradition of Menahem ben Ammiel being connected to David’s son Nathan.
The Prose Edda is one of many examples of European Royalty claiming descent from Troy. It seems before British Israelism made Ephraim popular, it was Troy the nations of Western Europe sought to use to give themselves a more ancient heritage. Virgil and Livy weren’t the first to connect to Rome to Aeneas, however Homer himself supports no such connection. Nennius and Geoffrey of Monmouth further connect the Britons to Aeneas. Geoffrey of Tours traced the Franks back to Helenus and Andromache.
But it is in the Prose Edda we see an early clue this descent from Troy may have been code for, or a middle stage of, descent from Israel. Because the Prose Edda says Troy was 12 Kingdoms with one High King. Trojan ancestry goes back to Dardanus who could come from Dan or Dara/Darda son of Zerah son of Judah and Tamar, Britam argued some Judahites were mingled into Dan. But it is perhaps Troy’s allies that have stronger ties to the Northern Kingdom, via the Sea Peoples, and Gyges and the Amazons. Joel also refers to Judeans being sold into slavery to Javan(Ionians).
Now that I’ve read Oedipus and Akhneton. I can say I agree with the basic premise but not entirely on the details of how he makes the argument. A lot of the differences have to do with things we’ve learned since. But I’m even willing to agree that Baketaton is the daughter of Akhnaton and Tiy his mother.
The parts where he talks about Sexuality make me a little uncomfortable. I don’t think other Ancient Cultures were any less tolerant of Homosexuality then the Greeks. I’ve shown that The Bible does not Condemn Homosexuality. I know there are Mesopotamian myths with Homoerotic subtext comparables to what we find in Greece, like Enkidu and Gilgamesh. And in Egypt Nephthys was associated with Lesbianism. Also he should have considered that Laius sin against Crisyphus was maybe that it was Rape.
All this thinking about Oedipus leads my brain to thinking about Electra, who in terms of psychological complexes is the female counterpart of Oedipus. Just recently as I’ve been working on this post, I read a detail of the Electra legend I hadn’t noticed before. Orestes was it seems an infant when Clytemnestra killed Agememnon, and it seems she wanted to kill Orestes too but he was smuggled away to safety, in some versions by Electra.
And that makes me think of a Biblical Parallel. I’ve long been intrigued by Jehosheba who saved Jehoash, partly because of how she can be compared to Snow White. But now I”m seeing a parallel to Electra, with Athaliah as Clytemnestra. Like in many of Salverda’s theories the family tree has tweaked in the Greek version.
For starters I maintain my long belief that Jehosheba’s mother was not Athaliah. We know Jehoram had other wives, and she’s never referred to as related to Athaliah. And Orestes became a brother rather than nephew. And this evil Queen actually killed her grandchildren rather than Husband.
I still think Agamemnon existed as an actual ruler of Argos and/or Mycene who lead a naval expedition against Troy in around 678 BC. And that he possibly descended from northern Israelites. But the myths surrounding his family starting with Homer’s incorporated some distorted memories of Israelite myths. The story I just talked about is mainly about the Southern Kingdom, but Athaliah was the daughter of Ahab and Jezebel.
In Gospel in the Stars theories, Clytemnestra and Helen’s bothers, the Gemeni Twins, get compared to Levi and Simeon’s actions in Genesis 34. Levi and Simeon weren’t twins, but I believe Dinah was a twin sister of Zebulun.
Salverda and others have seen the story of Athamas as the main Greek memory of the offering of Isaac. And I think it definitely is partly. But I’ve also argued that it was actually a Deer not a Ram offered in Isaac’s place. So that makes it interesting how in some versions when Agamemnon sacrificed Iphigenia, Artemis replaced her with a Deer at the last moment. Of course in character Iphigenia sometimes more resembles the daughter of Jephthah then Isaac.
So this family’s story has a few Biblical themes mixed together.
The parents of Clytemnestra were Tyndareus and Leda. Tyndareus was the son of Oebalus and Gorgophone. Gorgophone was a daughter of Perseus and Andromeda. So she had descent from the Danoi. And perhaps the name Oebalus came from Ahab calling himself a son of Baal.
So those are my thoughts for today, I hope you enjoyed them.
