What does Greek even mean?

First I want to remind people that when I discus the Table of Nations I don't expect direct easy correlations between Noah's sons and modern "racial" classifications or DNA Haplogroups or ancient assumptions about the continents.  I think things were a lot more complicated then that.

In the KJV of the Hebrew Bible any time you see Greece or Greek or Grecia or Grecian it's a reference to Javan son of Japheth, his descendants and where they settled. Which scholars of the ancient Bronze/Iron Age and early classical antiquity know refereed to the Ionians and Ionia.

However in the New Testament those words are translations of references to the Hellens.  The Hellens as an ethnic term didn't always  include everyone we today mean by Greeks.  However the word was also associated with anyone who could speak the Hellenic language and is thus used of Hellenized Jews like the Seven Deacons in Acts 6.

The Ionians were Hellens, but only one of a number of Hellenic tribes.  And of the mythical founder figures of the original four Hellenic tribes, Ion's parentage is questionable, which may be a mythical memory that the Ionians were not Hellens originally but became absorbed into them.  And the same may be true later on of the tribes said to descend from Hellen's sisters' sons.

The ancient root of the words Greek and Greece is one of those nephews of Hellen, Greacus, but the Hellens typically said to come from him were mainly those of Southern Italy and Sicily, Magna Graecia.  The Latins called all Hellens Greeks after them and thus via the Vulgate that's why there are so many Greeks in our English Bibles.

Ionia was a part of Asia Minor/Turkey, south of Mysia and west of Phrygia, it included the cities of Miletus, Ephesus and Smyrna, and Islands like Samos.  The Ionians also colonized more Aegean islands and eventually came to the actual mainland of modern Greece and by the early Classical period a significant portion of the population of Athens/Attica were Ionians, maybe even the majority.  But the Athenians of legends set in the Heroic Age were not likely to have been Ionians.

Athens becoming the cultural capital of Greece during the Classical Period is the main basis for treating Ionian and Hellen as synonyms, but on purely genealogical grounds it doesn't work so well.  Alexander The Great can be called of Javan based on his culture, being educated by Aristotle made him in many ways more Athenian then Macedonian in his way of thinking.  But also Daniel 8:21 arguably describes Alexander as a King of Javan in a way that doesn't' necessarily make him Javanite himself.  Daniel 11 doesn't directly link Alexander to Javan at all but mentions Javan as where the Persian Wars started, the first conflict of which is known as the Ionian Revolt.

Now I do believe that the Grandsons of Noah had more children then just the ones named, the sons named are founders of offshoot nations.  Therefore I do think Ionian strictly speaking doesn't include the nations of Javan's four sons.  So does that justify expanding Javan's descendants to include all Hellens?  Well that's complicated, there is plenty of reason to think all their original locations were also either in modern Turkey or on islands not far from Turkish coast-lands.

Kittim is well known to refer to Cyprus, Kition, but perhaps not even all of it as Kition was one of ten ancient kingdoms of Cyprus.  Attempts to expand it to being synonymous with "Greece" start with desiring to see Isaiah 23 as about Alexander's siege of Tyre.  But Kittim is not actually identified as Tyre's enemy here but a place Tyrians would try to flee to, which can potentially apply equally to both Alexander's siege and Nebuchadnezzar's.  Daniel 11:30 is used to try and make Kittim into Rome because in the traditional view this is where Rome starts becoming a thorn in the side of Antiochus Epiphanes, but that encounter between Antiochus and Rome happened on Cyprus.  In my alternative view that this is about the reign of Ptolemy IV this may have to do with how Cyprus was under Ptolemaic control.  There was even a brief dynastic connection.

Elishah is the big factor in trying to make all Hellens into Javanites, sometimes by arguing the name Hellen itself comes from Elishah which is pretty tortured, as well as Elysium and the Elysian fields which were underworld locations, and Josephus said the Eleans (people of Elis) came from Elishah.  However the Elishah of Javan is probably the Alashiya, another kingdom of ancient Cyprus, perhaps specifically the sites of Kalavasos and Alassa.  Elishah and Kittim are both mentioned together with Mizraim in Ezekiel 27:7-8, at the time Ezekiel was writing Egypt was also colonizing Cyprus, or in one theory I've considered had been exiled there.

The Dodanim is most likely supposed to be read Rodanim which I explained the textual reasons for on my Sola Scirptura blog.  It most likely refers to Rhodes, an island north-east of Crete and closer to Turkey then it is to Crete, south of Ionia.  KJV onlyists however will cling to Dodanim irrationally, which makes Dodona an attractive identification.  Dodona was an Oracle in Epirus even more ancient then Delphi, and also a city in Thessaly.  Aristotle said Dodona was the original homeland of the Aeoleans, but history wasn't his area of expertise.  Attempts to say they were actually the Dardanians are also made, but there is no textual support for a d-r reading.

Tarshish is who's identification is the most mysterious.  I do not think possibly misunderstood Chronicles verses are good justification for placing Tarshish in the east rather then west.  Regions of ancient Spain like Tartessos I think were first settled by Phut, there has long been speculation that the Basques are related to the Berbers.  And if I were to theorize a Biblical origin for the name Tartessos itself, Tirzah is closer then Tarshish since there are reasons that letter for Z sometimes become a T.

I no longer support fanciful theories about Tarshish being Briton or India or Japan.  However of mainstream theories Tarsus is the most probable.

Tarshish is another example of my maybe coming to support a theory of Velikovsky I originally didn't think I would, which is making them the Minoans/Crete or more specifically Knossos.
https://www.varchive.org/nldag/tarshish.htm

However it could also simply be the Tarsus of Cilicia which was already known by that name in Assyrian Inscriptions.

In Greek Mythology a people called the Telchines were the earliest inhabitants of Rhodes, and also lived on Cyprus and Crete. So this term could be a name given to the offshoots of Javan.  And that makes them Pre-Hellenic not Hellens.

The Pre-Hellenic people of Greece were often called Pelasgians as a whole, yet Pelasgians are sometimes implied to be one specific group.  Some theories about the etymology of Pelasgian imply there wasn't originally an S before the G, which makes a connection to Peleg possible.

I also believe two Canaanite tribes were among the Pre-Helelnic Greeks.  The Arkite tribe were the Arcadians and the Sinite tribe the Sintians.

Thrace I think was the ancient nation of Tiras, but I think Thracians also traveled north and contributed to Scandinavia.

Where do I think the Hellens came from Biblically?  Well I think they may have been Israelites who lost their identity.  Partly from north western coastal tribes of the Northern Kingdom becoming sea traders and thus mingling with the Phoenicians as well as Ionians in cities like Miletus.  And partly from what Joel 3 says about children of Judah and Jerusalem being sold as slaves to Javanites by Tyre and Philista.  Which could include the wives and children of Jehoram of Judah some of whom were taken by the Philistines.

On my comparative mythology blog I shall in the future discus evidence for that from Greek mythology.  But one particular factor there, since the Joel verse gives good reason to see Benjamites as included, is that the Tarsus of Cilicia could come from the Tarshish of the Tribe of Benjamin in 1 Chronicles 7:10.  Paul was born in Tarsus of Cilicia and is well known to have been a Benjamite.

But for now I want to remind those trying to argue Paul only brought The Gospel to the "Lost Tribes" that specifically Ionian places are important in Acts.  Ephesus and Miletus in Ionia (likewise Ephesus and Smyrna in Revelation), Athens, Cyrpus, Rhodes and Crete were all visited by Paul.  And then of course Paul's hometown may itself be Tarshish.

Update October 2020:  I'm updating this in the context of my Language of The Table of Nations discussion on another blog.

The Linguistic unity of all the subtribes of Greece has caused me somewhat change what I argued above and still view all of them as ultimately of Javan.  First look at this Map from the Dorian Invasion Wikipedia page.

Elishah I believe was the Northwest Greeks and the Aeolians.

Further Update June 2021: There is plenty of reason to suspect the region of Ionia is where all the ancestors of the Hellens lived first.  Linguistically that Phrygian is considered closely related to Greece fits, and the Anatolian Languages might be as well, perhaps they are the branch of Javan represented by Tarshish.  Archeologists don't believe Hellenic speakers arrived on Western site of the Aegean till about 1600 BC.  Revised Chronology could bring that down another 4 or 5 centuries.

Homer is believed to have lived on an Island on Anatolia's side of the Aegean, and Hesiod is said to have been born there as well.  Ionia is also where Pre-Socratic Greek Philosophy started, the three Milesian Philosophers, Heraclitus of Ephesus, Xenophanes of Colophon, and Pythagoras was born in Samos.

The Richat Structure as Atlantis theory

Recently I learned of the Richat Structure theory via this video from the Bright Insight YouTube Channel.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDoM4BmoDQM
He believes a number of fringe things I don't support, like when he talks about Baalbek in other videos.
[[That video now has a follow up https://youtu.be/lyV8TUlV3Ds.]]

Here is a playlist of the full documentary on the subject.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLPzaG2Oyvx5GAFhqrPSo5CyrmBNL3Z1E3
It brings up the debunked Dogon/Sirius mystery stuff, but other then that seems like solid research.

Now I was aware of Atlantis possibly being in North-West Africa long before I heard of the Richat Structure.  So these advocates of the theory would benefit by mentioning how broadly Atlantis in this region theories were proposed before the Richat Structure was even discovered in 1965.

Like the theories of French geographer E. F. Berlioux first published in 1874, and expanded in 1883 in L'Atlas primitif et l'Atlantis, of the Saharian Sea, which located Atlantis in the Hoggar mountains of the Saharan Atlas.  A different part of North-West Africa, but still in the ballpark broadly.

That theory was among the influences on French novelist Pierre Benoit (1886-1962) when he wrote his novel L'Atlantide, first published in France in February 1919.  It was adapted to film multiple times before 1965, and influenced other fiction including some Italian Sword and Sandal films, the character of Queen Antinea was an important influence on the modern Femme Fatale archetype.
http://www.coolfrenchcomics.com/atlantide.htm

These two different theories could be compatible, the Hoggar Mountains could have been home to one of the Colonies of Atlantis.

Herodotus refereed to Atlantians in North-West Africa in Book IV of his Histories, sections 184-185.  Diodorus Sicilus Library of History Book III Chapters 52-57&60-61 talks about people of North-West Africa (Libya to the Ancient Greeks was all of Saharan Africa west of Egypt and Cyrene, not just modern Libya) including people called Atlantians and the Libyan Amazons (and also claims the Gorgons were actually a Human Matriarchal Tribe of the region rather then Snake monsters).  The curious thing about Diodorus account though is it's the Amazons rather then Atlantians who's history resembles Plato's Atlantis.  Their capital city is on an island in a Marsh, they build a vast empire through conquest including making a connection with Aegytpos, but are stopped by Greeks, sometime after which their homeland is said to be submerged.  His account does equate ancient Atlantian Kings with the Titans and Olympian deities however.

The question for me as a Biblical Literalist is, how do we fit this into a Biblical View of history?

First, if Atlantis (or whatever it was originally called) was a Post-Flood Civilization, they were probably among the descendants of Phut who is traditionally associated with North-West Africa.  I believe Ezekiel 38 uses Phut as an idiom of the Far West, not unlike Greek Mythology associating Mount Atlas with the Far West.

But the idea that the Sinking of Atlantis is another memory of Noah's Flood should also be considered.

I've already explained why I think it's futile to assume the Euphrates of Genesis 2 must be where the Post-Flood Euphrates is.  That was in the context of arguing for Eden being Aden in Yemen, a theory I still lean towards, but in my search for truth I consider many theories.

The Garden of the Hesperides in Greek Mythology are often thought to be a corrupted Greek memory of the Garden of Eden, and it is traditionally placed near Mount Atlas as the Titan Atlas was sometimes the father of the Hesperides.  In Plato's account of Atlantis the innermost island included a Sacred Garden of Poseidon.  So could Atlantis also be a corrupt memory of Eden?

Maybe when Cain was exiled from Eden he was exiled from the Richat.  Or maybe only from the inner most Island and it was the city he or his son founded that became this great imperial capital.

I've also Biblically argued for The Flood being proceeded by a major war.

And maybe in light of some speculation on my Comparative Mythology Blog the Gorgons could be an all female tribe descended from Lilith.

What I've said above can apply to a Global Flood model, which remains over all my view of The Flood.

However I said when addressing the Racist associations of Old Earth Creationism that I could be open to a local flood interpretation of Genesis, it's an Old Earth model I'm completely against (though I am intrigued by Peter Hiett's The History of Time and the Genesis of you theory which is the only such compromise that doesn't separate the Genesis 1 and 2 Adams or in some way claim not all Human descend from Adam and Eve).

I've looked at some of Michael Heiser's material on the subject.  But here is the thing, if the purpose of a Local Flood model is to make The Bible fit more with what mainstream science assumes.  Then Adam and Eve have to be placed in Africa not the Near East.

I have also found some sites arguing that via correcting possible translation ambiguities Genesis 7 could have been describing a Tsunami, which fits with what is proposed to have happened to Atlantis in the Richat Structure theory.  So maybe it's possible Noah's Ark was built inside or near the Richat Structure, then a tidal wave took it out to the Ocean and it somehow wound up landing somewhere in the Near East.

What's important is all Homo-Sapiens descend from both Adam and Eve.  If there are some who don't descend from Noah, the mainstream interpretation of the Genetic evidence implies they would have been in Africa.  Now Racists could attempt to twist that kind of view to their means too, saying non Noahites are not as Chosen as the rest of us.  But Romans 5 and 1st Corinthians 15 promise Salvation to all descendants of Adam, and Romans 11 that all Ethnicities will be grafted into Israel.

I've talked about Y-Chromosomal Haplogroups on this Blog before.  Not all my conclusions there necessarily need to be abandoned under this hypothesis.  Here is a Tree of how mainstream scientists view the descent of Y-Chromosomal Haplogroups.

People who descend from A or B but not the rest are all indigenous to Africa.

The most attractive way to interpret that in this proposed Local Flood model would be BR is descent from Seth or Enos and CR is descent from Noah.  I would then guess that C is Japheth (Enlarge is a mis-translation in Genesis 9, something I intend to talk about elsewhere, C is attested among Greeks and Cypriots). DE is Ham as Haplogroup E dominates much of Africa including Egypt including some ancient Mummies), Sudan, Ethiopia and North-West Africa, and has presence in the Middle East and even the Far East. And lastly F is Shem from whom comes Abraham who's descendants were destined to be the most numerous.  People of Hamite Pater-lineal ancestry did get incorporated into Israel via the Mixed Multitude and The Torah specifically saying to welcome Mizraimites, so that's why there are both Ashkenazim, Shaphardi and other Jews who are in Y-Haplogroup E.  (Though I've also been considering a model that would switch Ham and Shem.)

In-spite of all that speculation, I still lean towards a Global Flood.  It's simply that if you want to convince me of a Local Flood model, this is the only viable one.

Jehu and the Tel-Dan Stele

I want to state that I personally believe Jehu not Hazael authored the Tel-Dan Stele.

The slaying of Jehoram son of Ahab King of Israel and Ahaziah son of Jehoram of the House of David are feats of Jehu not Hazael according to The Bible in II Kings 9 and 10 (and it’s mentioned in II Chronicles as well).  And the Seventy kings or princes probably refers to the 70 sons of Ahab in Samaria.  That of course doesn’t matter to people who want to say The Bible is wrong.

If the Author named himself, that part of the inscription has not survived.  There are three maybe four main reasons people think it was Hazael.

First that generally Dan is not believed to have been under Israel’s control at this time, having been lost to Aram-Damascus back in the days of Baasha, but 2 Kings 10:29 contradicts the assumption that Jehu never controlled Dan, verses 32 and 33 seem to imply it was parts of modern Jordan that Hazael took from Jehu.  

Second is that the author says Hadad was the Deity who made him King.  Now at face value this is an issue with The Biblical account either way as First and Second Kings says that YHWH via Elijah and Elisha made both Hazael and Jehu King.  But even though Jehu did continue the idolatry of Jeroboam, his name seems to imply he wouldn’t have attributed his kingship to any god but YHWH, while the Bible itself associates Hadad worship with the Kings of Aram via naming many (both before and after Hazeal) BenHadad and Hadadezer.

Thing is the Baal Worshiping Ahab and Jezebel still gave YHWH theophoric names to their children.  If Baal was the name the Stele used that would not fit Jehu who was strictly suppressing Baal worship.  But Zechariah 12’s reference to the “mourning of Hadadrimmon in the valley of Megiddo” suggests Hadad worship was also present in the very region where Jehu overthrew the House of Ahab.  So Jehu may have been okay with using Hadad as an alternate name of YHWH.

Third is that the Author of the Stele seems to refer to earlier conflicts between the King of Israel and his father, and the Syrian Historian quoted by Josephus claims Hazael was a son of BenHadad.  I think Hazael may well have publicly claimed to be a son of BenHadad in spite of how The Bible makes it seem pretty unlikely he actually was, but this is still not inherently inconsistent with Jehu.  Jehu came from Gilead in the Trans-Jordan which may have often thought of itself as semi-independent.  And the books of Kings repeatedly refers to there being more events then it records.  Since Ramoth-Gilead was the site of the battle between Israel and Ben-Hadad, the father or grandfather of Jehu could have been an ally of BenHadad.

J-W Wesselius also argued the Stele was authored by Jehu.

Combining aspects of Rohl and Velikovsky.

Well, I'm now probably moving away again from the Mizraim was in Arabia theory.

As I've said before, even as I've become more critical of Velikovsky in terms of the 18th Dynasty,  I've become more convinced then ever of his models for the 19th, 20th and 21st Dynasties.

I've been considering the Implications of keeping that aspect of Velikovsky while at the same time considering that Rohl may have been at least partly right in his view of the Amarna Letters.

Mutbaal as Ishbaal/Eshbaal has always been Rohl's strongest argument.  Even conventionalists agree that Mutbaal also means Man of Baal.  We have someone ruling mainly in the Trans-Jordan but who's father controlled Shechem, and with basically the same name.  Too many perfect alignments to just ignore.

The name Labaya is suspected to be related to a Hebrew word usually translated Lion, Labiy Strong Number 3833.  The primary verse using this word I've seen so far cited to support it being a name for Saul is Psalm 57:4 which David wrote while on the run from Saul, and there it appears in a Plural form, Labaim.  Sometimes the plural suffix is used of an individual in Hebrew as a sign of respect.

I however have been looking at Prophecies in the Torah, Genesis 49:9, Numbers 23:24 and Numbers 24:9, where two words for Lion get used, Ari and Labiy.  Ari is definitely the Lion of Judah since only Ari is used in Micah 5:8, and Isaiah 29 uses Ariel (Lion of God) as a name for Zion, The City of David (Which is Bethlehem), and the Lions of Solomon's Throne were Ari.  So I wonder if it's possible that in these prophecies the Ari is David and the Labiy is Saul?

Rohl doesn't seem to have an identity for Abdi-Heba the King of Jerusalem in the Amarna Letters.  Probably because he assumed The Bible never names the Jebusite King of the region.  But that's because English translations obscure that the Hebrew of 2 Kings 24:23 says Araunah was a King.  And both accounts agree he was a Jebusite.

The fact that Abdi-Heba seems to have later started working with the same Hapiru that he'd complained about Labaya working with, is probably his alliance with David.  It can be inferred from the Biblical Narrative that they were on friendly terms already even before the Plague happened.

Now one implication of combining those two views, is bringing us right back to the 22nd Dynasty seemingly being the era of Solomon, Jeroboam and Rehoboam.  The starting point of Revised Chronology is usually saying that identification is obviously wrong.

Unless there is a forgotten dynasty, or forgotten final phase of the 18th, to come between the end of the Amarna period and the Libyan take over.

One criticism of the Shoshenq as Shishak view to come to me recently is that The Bible would have called Shosenk a Libyian (either by calling him a Lubim or of Phut).  When it refers to the Nubian Dynasty ruler Taharka it calls him a Cushite King, and doesn't call him Pharaoh or even directly say that he rules Egypt.

And then there is the fact that even the conventional date for Shoshenq is too late for when I place the end of Solomon's Reign, being Ussher's date (975 BC) at the latest.  Conventional Chronology places Ussher's date for Solomon's Death during the reign of Siamun of the 21st Dynasty.

This returns me to the mystery of how Manetho's 18th Dynasty does seem to last longer then Archeologists usually think.  And has him seemingly recording Ramses Minaium twice, once as part of the 18th Dynasty and then in the 19th Dynasty.  But Seti exists only in the 19th Dynasty account.

I still think Orus of Manetho is Akhenaten, and Rathotis is Tutankamun.  And then Acheneres as Ay and finally Armasis'Harmais as Horemheb.

Rohl has Horemheb as the Pharaoh who's daughter Solomon Married, that adds up well.  Since Labaya is now agreed to have probably died before Amenhotep III did, Horemheb was probably King when Solomon took the Throne 40 and one half years after Saul died.  Still it's possible that even though he was King at the time the daughter Solomon married was one of Akhenetan's, or any woman who held the title "King's Daughter".  Maybe Solomon wound up marrying the same Queen who had written to Suppiluliuma I?

That still leaves the Shishak question up in the air.