[Update 2023: I regret this post, I don't even to even facetiously endorse any Nazi ideas.]
Showing posts with label Table of Nations. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Table of Nations. Show all posts
Friday, August 2, 2019
Wednesday, December 5, 2018
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 Hellenes. The Hellenes 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 Hellenes, 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 Hellenes 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 Hellenes typically said to come from him were mainly those of Southern Italy and Sicily, Magna Graecia. The Latins called all Hellenes 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 Hellenes 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 Hellenes, 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.
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 Hellenes. The Hellenes 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 Hellenes, 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 Hellenes 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 Hellenes typically said to come from him were mainly those of Southern Italy and Sicily, Magna Graecia. The Latins called all Hellenes 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 Hellenes 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 Hellenes, 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.
Friday, September 7, 2018
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.
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.
Saturday, November 5, 2016
Cush, Africa, India and Arabia
One of the most confusing things in trying to determine the geography of Eden in Genesis 2 (if you think those names refer to the same places they do in Post-Flood geography, which Moses' present tense grammar supports), is how a river (The Gihon) sharing the same source as the Tigris, Euphrates and one seemingly linked to Arabia (Pishon), can encompass the Land of Cush (translated Ethiopia). But of course this is confusing only to those who've gotten in the habit of thinking Cush only refers to Africa south of Egypt.
Rob Skiba mocks the theory that places the Gihon in northern India. Well he is forgetting the Hindu Kush and the Kushan Empire. I've already discussed on this blog that I think Cush's son Raamah traveled to India and that he was partly the basis for the Hindu mythical figure of Rama. Rama and Raamah both had two sons. Rama's were mothered by Sita and named Lava and Kush, so like the Greeks the Indian mythical memory confused things. The Ramayana, our main source on Rama, like the Mahabarata is post Alexander The Great, (they're not nearly as old as Ancient Aliens keeps saying they are). Raamah's sons were Sheba and Dedan, maybe they are equally as linked to Arabia as Jokshan's pair of sons by those names. But I think the Hindu god Shiva's name could come from Sheba, the Hebrew word Sheba is sometimes pronounced that way thanks to the B/V interchangeability. And maybe Dedan is connected to the Danu and Danavas of Hindu mythology, and/or the Danuna of Burma.
Cush can also be linked to Mesopotamia starting with Nimrod. Some theories on Eden say the Cush meant there is the city of Kish. The Ziggurat of Kish is to a god who's name is possibly similar to two of Cush's sons. Judges has a King of Mesopotamia with Cushan in his composite name and/or title. Cushan in the Hebrew is just Cush with an N added at the end. Some have also theorized the Kassites could come from Cush.
The names of some of Cush's sons in Genesis 10 can be linked to Arabia, even leaving out the names that have duplicates among the descendants of Shem. Bill Cooper covers them in After The Flood Appendix 2. I think his biggest mistakes are who he puts where with the duplicate names, but it's still all useful information. He sadly missed Raamah's connection to India.
Another appearance in The Bible of the name Cushan is in Habakkuk 3:7 which all scholars agree is about Arabia. Where Cushan is mentioned in close proximity to Midian.
The reference in Numbers 12 to Moses having a Cushite wife is, because of the tendency to by default assume that name means Africa, part of the origin of the tradition recounted in Josephus that Moses married a Nubian princess after conquering Ethiopia for Egypt. This passage also becomes relevant to debates about both Polygamy and Inter-Racial marriage, with the text's condemnation of Aaron and Miriam's criticism here taken as a condemnation of opposition to either of those.
However there are scholars who have argued this wife may not even be a separate individual from Zipporah, the daughter of Jethro, thus making it irrelevant to Polygamy. Jetho is called a Priest in Midian, and sometimes seemingly a Midanite by residence. But his tribal identity is Kenite, we do not know how the Kenites fit into Genesis 10. Bill Cooper's argument they came from Midian's son Henoch I do not find convincing. Remembering that a Cushan is linked to Midian, the Kenites could very well be from Cush.
Bishop James Ussher in Annals of The World for the year 1615 BC quotes Eusebius Chronicles 1. 1. 1:53 as saying that the Ethiopians of Africa migrated there from the Indus River. During the Old and Middle Kingdoms Egypt's main enemy to their south was called Kerma, there is no definitive evidence of a nation called Kush on the Nile River until the 18th Dynasty.
One scholar writing theories about the Igbo Tribe of Africa suggested that Midian's sons Ephah and Epher might have gone to Africa, and the name Africa itself might come from Epher. I think all five sons of Midian were still in Midian in the days of Moses, and that is why Midian had five kings during the Wandering. But maybe in the days of Gideon when some Midianites sought to conquer Israel, others migrated to Africa. And perhaps at that time some of the Cushites near them did the same. Midianites have already been suggested to be among the tribes that made up the Hyksos, perhaps the Cushites were as well.
Putting all of those factors into consideration. There is no definitive proof ANY reference to Cush in The Torah ever means Africa. And maybe even many references from later that cause confusion are confusing only because we assume Africa.
On the subject of Revised Chronology there is Zerah The Cushite who fought a war with King Asa according to 2 Chronicles. Nothing in that account mentions Egypt at all. But all theories on who Shishak is think an Ethiopian invading Israel a generation later must be tied to Egyptian history somehow. And while I have myself on this blog endorsed two possible Egyptian identifications for Zerah (the more recent one the only one I still consider plausible). I now feel the need to point out that we do not need to.
The proper account of the war with Zerah doesn't mention Lubim (often taken to mean Libya) either. But they are mentioned alongside the Ethiopians when a Prophet rebukes Asa later. We don't know everything about Asa's 41 year reign, this may not have even been the same war. But either way Libyans are in a much better position then Nubia to potentially come to Israel by sea and thus bypass Egypt altogether. And perhaps what Lubim refers to is itself something we need to reevaluate, but I don't feel like looking into that myself just yet.
Isaiah 18 is also confusing. Partly because this Prophecy includes a quotation. I think most likely Israel is the nation that the nation "beyond the rivers of Cush" is sending messengers to. The "rivers of Cush" I think best fits a Mesopotamian or Indian Cush.
In the reign of Jehoram/Joram of Judah, there is an account of Judah being attacked by Philistines and "Arabians who are by Cush". That doesn't make sense if Cush and Arabia are on different continents.
One more thought on Cush and Arabia. In an earlier Nimrod post I observed how the Book of Jubilees seems to make a daughter of Nimrod the mother of Peleg and probably also Joktan. That would make Cush via Nimrod an ancestor of all the Semitic Tribes of Arabia.
Isaiah 20 is clearly the Cush in Africa however. Same mostly with Ezekiel 38&39 where since I view it the same as Revelation 20's Gog and Magog invasion, Cush is the South and Phut the West, while Persia is the East, and the other invaders mentioned are the North, all four corners (though Arabia could also be described as South, Jesus called the Queen of Saba the Queen of the South). And I do still think Taharqa is the 25th Dynasty ruler.
In an early post of this blog I made a big deal out of how Ethiopia in Greek mythology is linked to Joppa, and using that as evidence for the Ethiopian Jews claim to come from Dan. Since then I've read criticism that the Ethiopian Jews do not identify themselves with Dan, that idea comes solely from the legends spread by Eldad. The various traditions the Ethiopian Jews have all seem to favor them coming from Judah. That is something I may discus more in the future.
Maps drawn interpreting what was allotted to the Tribes tend to put Joppa in Dan. But Joshua 19:46 mentions a Danie location as a border before Joppa, not Joppa itself.. Likewise the Samson narrative from Judges 23-26 makes no reference to Joppa even though Samson was a Danite in their original allotment. Joppa seems to not be referenced itself at all till the time of Solomon, it appears in the Old Testament only three times, in 2 Chronicles 2:16, Ezra 3:7 and Jonah 1:3. Jonah is the most famous reference, but the other two are about the Lebanon in origin supplies for The Temple coming through there.
Once Dan existed solely in the North, his old allotment could have been absorbed by Judah, Benjamin, Ephraim or Western Manasseh. All four of those tribes also had Monarchies at some point, but Manasseh's only lasted two years. At the same time observations I've made elsewhere make Manasseh seem the most likely to be interested in Sea Faring and thus having a port city. But they had other ports already like Dor. Acts 9:32-28 refers to Lydda as being nigh to Joppa. Lydda is in the Hebrew Bible Lod which is identified as a town of Benjamin (1 Chronicles 8:12; Ezra 2:33; Nehemiah 7:37; 11:35).
I mentioned how Cepheus is a name that could come from the same Semitic root the New Testament uses as the Hebrew/Aramaic counterpart to Petros/Peter. As an non-Catholic I know that Petros is Peter but Petras, the true Rock, is Jesus. Solomon is a type of Christ, and The Temple is a type of The Church. So could Cepheus have been a name for a Davidic King?
But Petra is also the name of a city in modern Jordan and the classical definition of Arabia, that is possibly right where Sinai was. So could this mythical Ethiopia also be an Arabian Cushan, and Joppa really just a port Perseus traveled through to get there? Memnon king of Ethiopia of Greek mythology had a brother who was a king of Arabia.
The Rock Moses struck to provide Water for the Israelites was a type of Jesus as The Rock, so connecting Petra and Cepheus to that region is very logical. Jeremiah 49:16 and Obadiah 3 both in prophecies against Edom refer to them "that dwellest in the clefts of the rock". The word for Rock there is Cela/Sela/Selah, believed to be the name for the Seir/Petra area in the Amarna letters, and mentioned in 2 Kings 14:7 which seems to describe it's name being changed. 1 Samuel 23 possibly records how it got the name Cela to begin with. Isaiah 42:11 also mentions Cela in close proximity to Kedar.
You might ask "where do Black Africans come from then?"
For starters as I don't believe in the Evolutionary model I think it's entirely possible many parts of Africa were not inhabited until after 1615 BC. And some even far later then that.
But regardless of that. I think Phut, the only Son of Ham who none of his own sons are named, could have been ancestral to more Tribes then we usually assume. I also think the Seven sons of Mizriam may have spread further then we usually assume. They certainly all started in Egypt, but ultimately the intent of Genesis 10 is to identify 70 distinct Nations, so I do think they were more then just subgroups of Egypt. The Kingdom of Kerma was probably a Mizraimite offshoot for example.
Last but not least, given the premise of my Shem, Ham and Japheth post. I'm willing to consider that the population of Africa is not limited to Ham. I've already suggested Midianites came at the same time Cush did. But maybe others came before that. Most of the sons of Joktan are not as firmly accounted for as the big three, Sheba, Ophir and Havilah, and links to Africa are argued even for those.
And at a much later point even then Cush. I have entertained the arguments of some that many Israelites came to Africa and were ancestral to the same Tribes chiefly targeted by the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade. But that shall be a subject for a future post.
Rob Skiba mocks the theory that places the Gihon in northern India. Well he is forgetting the Hindu Kush and the Kushan Empire. I've already discussed on this blog that I think Cush's son Raamah traveled to India and that he was partly the basis for the Hindu mythical figure of Rama. Rama and Raamah both had two sons. Rama's were mothered by Sita and named Lava and Kush, so like the Greeks the Indian mythical memory confused things. The Ramayana, our main source on Rama, like the Mahabarata is post Alexander The Great, (they're not nearly as old as Ancient Aliens keeps saying they are). Raamah's sons were Sheba and Dedan, maybe they are equally as linked to Arabia as Jokshan's pair of sons by those names. But I think the Hindu god Shiva's name could come from Sheba, the Hebrew word Sheba is sometimes pronounced that way thanks to the B/V interchangeability. And maybe Dedan is connected to the Danu and Danavas of Hindu mythology, and/or the Danuna of Burma.
Cush can also be linked to Mesopotamia starting with Nimrod. Some theories on Eden say the Cush meant there is the city of Kish. The Ziggurat of Kish is to a god who's name is possibly similar to two of Cush's sons. Judges has a King of Mesopotamia with Cushan in his composite name and/or title. Cushan in the Hebrew is just Cush with an N added at the end. Some have also theorized the Kassites could come from Cush.
The names of some of Cush's sons in Genesis 10 can be linked to Arabia, even leaving out the names that have duplicates among the descendants of Shem. Bill Cooper covers them in After The Flood Appendix 2. I think his biggest mistakes are who he puts where with the duplicate names, but it's still all useful information. He sadly missed Raamah's connection to India.
Another appearance in The Bible of the name Cushan is in Habakkuk 3:7 which all scholars agree is about Arabia. Where Cushan is mentioned in close proximity to Midian.
The reference in Numbers 12 to Moses having a Cushite wife is, because of the tendency to by default assume that name means Africa, part of the origin of the tradition recounted in Josephus that Moses married a Nubian princess after conquering Ethiopia for Egypt. This passage also becomes relevant to debates about both Polygamy and Inter-Racial marriage, with the text's condemnation of Aaron and Miriam's criticism here taken as a condemnation of opposition to either of those.
However there are scholars who have argued this wife may not even be a separate individual from Zipporah, the daughter of Jethro, thus making it irrelevant to Polygamy. Jetho is called a Priest in Midian, and sometimes seemingly a Midanite by residence. But his tribal identity is Kenite, we do not know how the Kenites fit into Genesis 10. Bill Cooper's argument they came from Midian's son Henoch I do not find convincing. Remembering that a Cushan is linked to Midian, the Kenites could very well be from Cush.
Bishop James Ussher in Annals of The World for the year 1615 BC quotes Eusebius Chronicles 1. 1. 1:53 as saying that the Ethiopians of Africa migrated there from the Indus River. During the Old and Middle Kingdoms Egypt's main enemy to their south was called Kerma, there is no definitive evidence of a nation called Kush on the Nile River until the 18th Dynasty.
One scholar writing theories about the Igbo Tribe of Africa suggested that Midian's sons Ephah and Epher might have gone to Africa, and the name Africa itself might come from Epher. I think all five sons of Midian were still in Midian in the days of Moses, and that is why Midian had five kings during the Wandering. But maybe in the days of Gideon when some Midianites sought to conquer Israel, others migrated to Africa. And perhaps at that time some of the Cushites near them did the same. Midianites have already been suggested to be among the tribes that made up the Hyksos, perhaps the Cushites were as well.
Putting all of those factors into consideration. There is no definitive proof ANY reference to Cush in The Torah ever means Africa. And maybe even many references from later that cause confusion are confusing only because we assume Africa.
On the subject of Revised Chronology there is Zerah The Cushite who fought a war with King Asa according to 2 Chronicles. Nothing in that account mentions Egypt at all. But all theories on who Shishak is think an Ethiopian invading Israel a generation later must be tied to Egyptian history somehow. And while I have myself on this blog endorsed two possible Egyptian identifications for Zerah (the more recent one the only one I still consider plausible). I now feel the need to point out that we do not need to.
The proper account of the war with Zerah doesn't mention Lubim (often taken to mean Libya) either. But they are mentioned alongside the Ethiopians when a Prophet rebukes Asa later. We don't know everything about Asa's 41 year reign, this may not have even been the same war. But either way Libyans are in a much better position then Nubia to potentially come to Israel by sea and thus bypass Egypt altogether. And perhaps what Lubim refers to is itself something we need to reevaluate, but I don't feel like looking into that myself just yet.
Isaiah 18 is also confusing. Partly because this Prophecy includes a quotation. I think most likely Israel is the nation that the nation "beyond the rivers of Cush" is sending messengers to. The "rivers of Cush" I think best fits a Mesopotamian or Indian Cush.
In the reign of Jehoram/Joram of Judah, there is an account of Judah being attacked by Philistines and "Arabians who are by Cush". That doesn't make sense if Cush and Arabia are on different continents.
One more thought on Cush and Arabia. In an earlier Nimrod post I observed how the Book of Jubilees seems to make a daughter of Nimrod the mother of Peleg and probably also Joktan. That would make Cush via Nimrod an ancestor of all the Semitic Tribes of Arabia.
Isaiah 20 is clearly the Cush in Africa however. Same mostly with Ezekiel 38&39 where since I view it the same as Revelation 20's Gog and Magog invasion, Cush is the South and Phut the West, while Persia is the East, and the other invaders mentioned are the North, all four corners (though Arabia could also be described as South, Jesus called the Queen of Saba the Queen of the South). And I do still think Taharqa is the 25th Dynasty ruler.
In an early post of this blog I made a big deal out of how Ethiopia in Greek mythology is linked to Joppa, and using that as evidence for the Ethiopian Jews claim to come from Dan. Since then I've read criticism that the Ethiopian Jews do not identify themselves with Dan, that idea comes solely from the legends spread by Eldad. The various traditions the Ethiopian Jews have all seem to favor them coming from Judah. That is something I may discus more in the future.
Maps drawn interpreting what was allotted to the Tribes tend to put Joppa in Dan. But Joshua 19:46 mentions a Danie location as a border before Joppa, not Joppa itself.. Likewise the Samson narrative from Judges 23-26 makes no reference to Joppa even though Samson was a Danite in their original allotment. Joppa seems to not be referenced itself at all till the time of Solomon, it appears in the Old Testament only three times, in 2 Chronicles 2:16, Ezra 3:7 and Jonah 1:3. Jonah is the most famous reference, but the other two are about the Lebanon in origin supplies for The Temple coming through there.
Once Dan existed solely in the North, his old allotment could have been absorbed by Judah, Benjamin, Ephraim or Western Manasseh. All four of those tribes also had Monarchies at some point, but Manasseh's only lasted two years. At the same time observations I've made elsewhere make Manasseh seem the most likely to be interested in Sea Faring and thus having a port city. But they had other ports already like Dor. Acts 9:32-28 refers to Lydda as being nigh to Joppa. Lydda is in the Hebrew Bible Lod which is identified as a town of Benjamin (1 Chronicles 8:12; Ezra 2:33; Nehemiah 7:37; 11:35).
I mentioned how Cepheus is a name that could come from the same Semitic root the New Testament uses as the Hebrew/Aramaic counterpart to Petros/Peter. As an non-Catholic I know that Petros is Peter but Petras, the true Rock, is Jesus. Solomon is a type of Christ, and The Temple is a type of The Church. So could Cepheus have been a name for a Davidic King?
But Petra is also the name of a city in modern Jordan and the classical definition of Arabia, that is possibly right where Sinai was. So could this mythical Ethiopia also be an Arabian Cushan, and Joppa really just a port Perseus traveled through to get there? Memnon king of Ethiopia of Greek mythology had a brother who was a king of Arabia.
The Rock Moses struck to provide Water for the Israelites was a type of Jesus as The Rock, so connecting Petra and Cepheus to that region is very logical. Jeremiah 49:16 and Obadiah 3 both in prophecies against Edom refer to them "that dwellest in the clefts of the rock". The word for Rock there is Cela/Sela/Selah, believed to be the name for the Seir/Petra area in the Amarna letters, and mentioned in 2 Kings 14:7 which seems to describe it's name being changed. 1 Samuel 23 possibly records how it got the name Cela to begin with. Isaiah 42:11 also mentions Cela in close proximity to Kedar.
You might ask "where do Black Africans come from then?"
For starters as I don't believe in the Evolutionary model I think it's entirely possible many parts of Africa were not inhabited until after 1615 BC. And some even far later then that.
But regardless of that. I think Phut, the only Son of Ham who none of his own sons are named, could have been ancestral to more Tribes then we usually assume. I also think the Seven sons of Mizriam may have spread further then we usually assume. They certainly all started in Egypt, but ultimately the intent of Genesis 10 is to identify 70 distinct Nations, so I do think they were more then just subgroups of Egypt. The Kingdom of Kerma was probably a Mizraimite offshoot for example.
Last but not least, given the premise of my Shem, Ham and Japheth post. I'm willing to consider that the population of Africa is not limited to Ham. I've already suggested Midianites came at the same time Cush did. But maybe others came before that. Most of the sons of Joktan are not as firmly accounted for as the big three, Sheba, Ophir and Havilah, and links to Africa are argued even for those.
And at a much later point even then Cush. I have entertained the arguments of some that many Israelites came to Africa and were ancestral to the same Tribes chiefly targeted by the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade. But that shall be a subject for a future post.
Friday, June 12, 2015
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.
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.
Wednesday, April 2, 2014
Abraham was from Urkesh not Sumeria.
It's a pretty controversial position to take, that the Ur Kassadim "Ur of the Chaldeans" Abraham came from wasn't Ur in Southern Mesopotamia, but a city in modern Turkey.
UrKesh
First I'll copy this information from the Urkesh Wikipedia Talk page.
I agree with the Specialtyinterests site's argument for the Kassites and the Kassadim/Chaldeans being the same people. They connect the etymology very well. But I'm not sure I agree with moving down the Kassite period.
www.specialtyinterests.net/the_grand_vizier
The point is that identification verifies that the Kassadim where NOT in Mesopotamia until well after the time of Abraham, at the soonest the Kassites came to Shinar at the start of the Hycsos/Judges period. They originally migrated from a mountain region in modern Turkey, which one is uncertain, the Zargos mountains are popular , but the Taurus mountains where Urkesh is are also possible. They may have inhabited more then one range.
I enjoy Velikovsky's article on Hammurabi.
http://www.varchive.org/ce/hammurabi.html
UrKesh
First I'll copy this information from the Urkesh Wikipedia Talk page.
The gratuitous polemic "There seems to be a need to prove that Urkesh was not Ur of the Chaldees" has no place in this article, since no such link can be proven or disproven. While there may indeed be no link between Urkesh and the Biblical "Ur Kasdim", the obsessive and repeated attempts by archeologists, historians, and scholars to force an identification of Ur Kasdim with Sumerian "Ur" have proven groundless, and none of the aforementioned seems to have the courage to simply admit that the link is tenuous at best. The following are worth bearing in mind: 1. Sumerian "Ur" is a pure misnomer. In Sumerian cuneiform, it is called "Urima", and in Accadian "Uriwa", and the root of both names URI, is demonstrably of different form from the Hebraic name Ur. 2. The "Chaldees" is not the name of a country in the Bible, but of a tribe, Chaldeans. They are depicted in later books of the Bible as conquerors from outside Mesopotamia who conquered the area and took control of Babylon. However, there is no mention of the Chaldeans as a tribe anywhere in the Pentateuch, only the refererence to "Ur Kasdim". The name Kasdim may be ethymologically related to a relative of Abraham, Kesed, who, together with Aram, are descendants of Abraham's brother Nahor based in the vicinity of Harran, in Upper Mesopotamia. This region, known in Genesis as Aram Naharaim, is very clearly and repeatedly referred to as the place of origin of the Hebrew patriarchs, NOT Sumeria (which is referred to in Genesis as the 'Plain of Shinar'). There is no mention of Chaldeans active in this region until the late Israelite monarchy, more than 1000 years later, and their is no precedent in the Pentateuch for an anachronism on a scale of this magnitude. After the Exodus from Egypt, in Deuteronomy 26, the Hebrews are asked to recite a passage to recall their patrimony: "A wandering Aramean was my ancestor; he went down into Egypt and lived there as an alien, few in number, and there he became a great nation, mighty and populous." It is clear that the association of their patrimony was with rustic pastoralism, and not with the settled urbanised city life characteristic of the bustling urban metropolis and port city of Sumerian "Ur". The lifestyles of the early patriarchs simply cannot be tallied with those of the cityfolk of the Sumerian metropoli. It is evident from the Biblical narratives that the patrimony of the Hebrews is placed in the vicinity of Harran. I do not believe that Urkesh was Ur Kasdim, and in my opinion, a far more likely candidate for it is Urfa, AKA Edessa, which is regarded in Islamic tradition as the birthplace of Abraham. Such a tradition is not a recent invention, but stemmed from ancient Syriac Christian tradition linked to the city, which in turn must have come from the very ancient Jewish community there (one of the ancient Greek names for the town was reputedly Αντιόχεια της Ιουδαίας , i.e. Antioch of the Jews.) In fact, one of the earliest known Hellenistic Greek names of the city, was Ορρα (ORRA, Romanized form Orrha). Such a link cannot be made with certainty, but it is the certainty with which sholars identify Sumerian "Ur" with Ur of the Chaldees when not a shred of evidence exists to justify such a link that ought to raise eyebrows. --Jacob DavidsonUrkesh also had a King named Te'irru . He's probably not the same person as Terah the Father of Abraham, but often people are named after Kings, or Kings are named after famous people.
I agree with the Specialtyinterests site's argument for the Kassites and the Kassadim/Chaldeans being the same people. They connect the etymology very well. But I'm not sure I agree with moving down the Kassite period.
www.specialtyinterests.net/the_grand_vizier
The point is that identification verifies that the Kassadim where NOT in Mesopotamia until well after the time of Abraham, at the soonest the Kassites came to Shinar at the start of the Hycsos/Judges period. They originally migrated from a mountain region in modern Turkey, which one is uncertain, the Zargos mountains are popular , but the Taurus mountains where Urkesh is are also possible. They may have inhabited more then one range.
I enjoy Velikovsky's article on Hammurabi.
http://www.varchive.org/ce/hammurabi.html
Saturday, March 29, 2014
Ham, Mizraim and the origin of Egypt
I want to make a quick post about what I think on the very beginning of Egypt's history.
First I want to explain that that the Tale of Nations (Genesis 10) is not necessarily listing all of Noah's grandchildren and even less so all the great grandchildren. It's listing the founders of the earliest nations. So I don't think Ham stopped reproducing at only 4 or 5 male children and a daughter to marry each. And I certainly don't think all Egyptians need to go back to one of the 7 offspring listed of Mizraim, in fact strictly speaking I think none of them do, those are tribes that broke off from Mizraim's main nation and helped Phut populate the rest of North Africa. Josephus says these off shoot nations were wiped out during a mysterious ancient Ethiopic War which was ended by Moses. Whether or not there is any truth to that, the Philistines descend from an intermingling of two of them, they're NOT the prst of the Ramses III inscriptions and have nothing to do with Crete or the Agean, they were in Caanan already in the days of Abraham.
The Bible refers to Egypt as "the land of Ham" in Psalms 78:51; 105:23,27; 106:22; 1Ch 4:40. The Egyptian word Kmt or Kem is another word the Egyptians used for themselves, and it looks like it could be related to the name of Ham, which in the Hebrew is Cham or Kham or Khem. Claims that the Egyptians worshiped a Horned god named something like Khum of Chum have actually not stood up under scrutiny. Based on the above observation however, I shall conjecture that Egypt is the land were Ham himself settled after the dispersion.
The name of Mizraim ends in the dual suffix -āyim, perhaps referring to the "two Egypts", and has also been interpreted to mean "the two straits". I've seen it suggested that Mizraim is really a term that implies a set of Twins.
Egypt was a dual kingdom, Upper Egypt (the south) and Lower Egypt (the North). The myth of brothers Osiris and Seth/Set in Egyptian mythology was not simply a matter of Osiris is Good and Set is evil, Many traditions about Set also affiliate him with being a Hero who defeats Apep (not to be confused with the name of Apepi the latter Hycsos king, however similar they seem to us their distinct in how their written in Egyptian) a chaotic deity. And before the Second Intermediate period it wasn't uncommon for there to be sects of the Egyptian religion that favored Set over Osiris. The vilification of Set seems to have happened largely in response to the Hycsos occupation as they favored worshiping Set. The key distinction here is that Set had his seat in Lower Egypt and Osiris in Upper Egypt.
I think it's possible Osiris and Set were the Mizraim twins, and that Isis and Nephthys were daughters of Ham they married. Ham divided Egypt between them before he died, but they inevitably fought a war with each other.
Horus was the son of Osiris and his successor who defeated Set. That is well known but what isn't as well known is that the Turin Papyrus lists a second Horus reigning at the end of the dynasty of the gods, between the two are Thoth and Maat. Even less well known is that Horus's wife Hathor is depicted in the Dendera Temple as bearing him a son named Ihy who is also called Hor-seme-tawy.
The earliest known ruler of Pre-Dynastic Egypt that archeology has uncovered is Iry-Hor in Upper Egypt.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iry-Hor
I think he is Ihy/Horus the Younger.
Another theory I'd considered in the past was started with the fact that Bill Cooper in Chapter 6 of After The Flood, argues that the name Seth in place of Sceaf in some genealogies could justifiably come from Japheth. I instantly thought of the Egyptian Seth/Set but didn't make much of it till I read on the Wkipedia page for Red Hair that that the Egyptian considered Red Hair a sign of Descent from Set, and Red Hair is today at least most common among certain Japhethite people like the Irish and some Scandinavians (Thor was usually depicted with Red Hair unlike Marvel Comics and the MCU).
Adding to that that Seth and Osiris like Iapetos in Greek mythology are made the direct offspring of Heaven and Earth (but Egypt switched the genders). I thought about identifying Osiris with Ham and Japheth with Set.
But I now know better then to simplistically think such ethnic features tell us for certain who someone descends from. The Bible arguably identifies Red Hair with Esau/Edom and David, showing it's not limited to Japheth. Maybe Set was a twin born with Red Hair like Esau was?
And I'm uncomfortable with any theory that vilifies Ham due to their ties to Racism. Canaan and Canaan alone sinned in Genesis 9.
It's possible I think that Satan inspired Egyptian mythology to give the name Seth to fratricide not originally named Seth in order to plant a seed for perverting Genesis 4 to say it was Seth who killed his Brother.
Additional note. You can read my view on The Great Pyramid here.
First I want to explain that that the Tale of Nations (Genesis 10) is not necessarily listing all of Noah's grandchildren and even less so all the great grandchildren. It's listing the founders of the earliest nations. So I don't think Ham stopped reproducing at only 4 or 5 male children and a daughter to marry each. And I certainly don't think all Egyptians need to go back to one of the 7 offspring listed of Mizraim, in fact strictly speaking I think none of them do, those are tribes that broke off from Mizraim's main nation and helped Phut populate the rest of North Africa. Josephus says these off shoot nations were wiped out during a mysterious ancient Ethiopic War which was ended by Moses. Whether or not there is any truth to that, the Philistines descend from an intermingling of two of them, they're NOT the prst of the Ramses III inscriptions and have nothing to do with Crete or the Agean, they were in Caanan already in the days of Abraham.
The Bible refers to Egypt as "the land of Ham" in Psalms 78:51; 105:23,27; 106:22; 1Ch 4:40. The Egyptian word Kmt or Kem is another word the Egyptians used for themselves, and it looks like it could be related to the name of Ham, which in the Hebrew is Cham or Kham or Khem. Claims that the Egyptians worshiped a Horned god named something like Khum of Chum have actually not stood up under scrutiny. Based on the above observation however, I shall conjecture that Egypt is the land were Ham himself settled after the dispersion.
The name of Mizraim ends in the dual suffix -āyim, perhaps referring to the "two Egypts", and has also been interpreted to mean "the two straits". I've seen it suggested that Mizraim is really a term that implies a set of Twins.
Egypt was a dual kingdom, Upper Egypt (the south) and Lower Egypt (the North). The myth of brothers Osiris and Seth/Set in Egyptian mythology was not simply a matter of Osiris is Good and Set is evil, Many traditions about Set also affiliate him with being a Hero who defeats Apep (not to be confused with the name of Apepi the latter Hycsos king, however similar they seem to us their distinct in how their written in Egyptian) a chaotic deity. And before the Second Intermediate period it wasn't uncommon for there to be sects of the Egyptian religion that favored Set over Osiris. The vilification of Set seems to have happened largely in response to the Hycsos occupation as they favored worshiping Set. The key distinction here is that Set had his seat in Lower Egypt and Osiris in Upper Egypt.
I think it's possible Osiris and Set were the Mizraim twins, and that Isis and Nephthys were daughters of Ham they married. Ham divided Egypt between them before he died, but they inevitably fought a war with each other.
Horus was the son of Osiris and his successor who defeated Set. That is well known but what isn't as well known is that the Turin Papyrus lists a second Horus reigning at the end of the dynasty of the gods, between the two are Thoth and Maat. Even less well known is that Horus's wife Hathor is depicted in the Dendera Temple as bearing him a son named Ihy who is also called Hor-seme-tawy.
The earliest known ruler of Pre-Dynastic Egypt that archeology has uncovered is Iry-Hor in Upper Egypt.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iry-Hor
I think he is Ihy/Horus the Younger.
Another theory I'd considered in the past was started with the fact that Bill Cooper in Chapter 6 of After The Flood, argues that the name Seth in place of Sceaf in some genealogies could justifiably come from Japheth. I instantly thought of the Egyptian Seth/Set but didn't make much of it till I read on the Wkipedia page for Red Hair that that the Egyptian considered Red Hair a sign of Descent from Set, and Red Hair is today at least most common among certain Japhethite people like the Irish and some Scandinavians (Thor was usually depicted with Red Hair unlike Marvel Comics and the MCU).
Adding to that that Seth and Osiris like Iapetos in Greek mythology are made the direct offspring of Heaven and Earth (but Egypt switched the genders). I thought about identifying Osiris with Ham and Japheth with Set.
But I now know better then to simplistically think such ethnic features tell us for certain who someone descends from. The Bible arguably identifies Red Hair with Esau/Edom and David, showing it's not limited to Japheth. Maybe Set was a twin born with Red Hair like Esau was?
And I'm uncomfortable with any theory that vilifies Ham due to their ties to Racism. Canaan and Canaan alone sinned in Genesis 9.
It's possible I think that Satan inspired Egyptian mythology to give the name Seth to fratricide not originally named Seth in order to plant a seed for perverting Genesis 4 to say it was Seth who killed his Brother.
Additional note. You can read my view on The Great Pyramid here.
Saturday, March 22, 2014
Nimrod and Babel identified Part 2
This is a follow up post, for part 1 go here.
Now to discus this Enmerkar in more detail. He's second only to Gilgamesh among the heroes of ancient Sumerian literature. Gilgamesh is also of the same Dynasty, a generation or two later.
In Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta a previous confusion of the languages of mankind is mentioned. This agrees with the Biblical conclusion I came to earlier, Nimrod didn't instigate Babel (at least not originally) but came sometime later, though definitely still when it was a fairly recent memory. Aside from founding Uruk, Enmerkar is said here to have had a temple built at Eridu, and is even credited with the invention of writing on clay tablets, for the purpose of threatening Aratta into submission. Enmerkar furthermore seeks to restore the disrupted linguistic unity of the inhabited regions around Uruk, listed as Shubur, Hamazi, Sumer, Uri-ki (the region around Akkad), and the Martu land.
This, and the other three major legends about Enmerkar chiefly revolve around his conflict with a Kingdom called Aratta, and it's ruler En-suhgir-ana. Aratta obviously sounds a lot like Ararat, but most scholars won't connect them because they are used to the traditional identification of Ararat referring to a mountain in Turkey, and these texts clearly seem to place Aratta in northern Iran.
But Bob Conruke has shown that The Bible clearly places Ararat in northern Iran.
http://www.baseinstitute.org/pages/noahs_ark/17
He even addresses the connection between Ararat and Armenia.
From Genesis 10 and other sources referenced in Bill Cooper's After The Flood this region is indeed likely to be one of the earliest major settlements of Japheth's descendants (Gomer and Madai chiefly). Some Rabbinical traditions (like the so called book of Jasher from medieval times), suggest there was a war or conflict between Nimrod and Japheth (or Japheth's descendants).
According to the ancient Armenian historian Moses of Khorene and Georgian historian Leonti Mroveli. Hayk was a Son of Togarmah son of Gomer son of Japheth who founded Armenia and inherited Arrarat. Hayk is said to have fought wars with a Mesopotamian king named Bel who is sometimes identified with Nimrod. Though to the Greeks Belus was the father of Ninus.
Enmerkar's successor was Lugalbanda, who appears in the narratives about Enmerkar as a military figure. It's possible that Lugalbanda was just an interim military governor ruling Uruk, and that the rule of Sumer as a whole went to Etana in Kish, who is said to have "consolidated all the foreign countries". Although his reign has yet to be archaeologically attested, his name is found in later legendary tablets, and Etana is sometimes regarded as the first king and founder of Kish himself.
Etana has been a Nimrod candidate on some websites I've visited. The Evidence for Enmerkar far outweighs the evidence for Etana in my view. But maybe it's not impossible Etana and Enmerkar are the same person simply known by different names in different cities. But for now my working theory is that they are different people.
Etana could easily have been one of Cush's other sons, and the brother of Nimrod, creating possible parallels to Set overthrowing Osiris in Egyptian mythology, and many other myths about a a tyrant becoming King by killing his brother to latter be avenged by his brother's son. Zababa was the name of the patron deity of Kish, which makes Sabtah or Sabtecha seem the likely candidates to me.
The next King of Uruk was Dumuzid, who's name is another form of Tammuz. Modern mythology makes him the Son of Nimrod and likely an inspiration for figures like Osiris and/or Horus, I'm skeptical of all that, but it could fit here. Dumuzid was captured by Enmebaragesi of Kish, the earliest ruler on the kings-list whose name is attested directly from archaeology. So we are at the dawn of recorded history now.
There are two Dumuzids on the Kings-list. The Antediluvian one is who the Tammuz myths are usually attributed to. But I believe that's because of Confusion, while I do think some real Pre-Flood history may be remembered in the myths associated with the Antediluvian Sumerian Kings, I believe this was the only real Dumuzid. The Tammuz myths are clearly heavily mythologized and harder to identify with history anyway, because they revolve around Inanna. But in part I feel this comes from this Dumuzid's relationship with the High Priestess of Inanna, who's Temple was in Uruk, and the sacred Marriage ritual that was key to the religion of Uruk. I suspect the same thing about Inanna's role in the Gilgamesh legends. Indeed every other myth about Inanna is known to be about the importance of Uruk.
Dumuzid was succeeded by Bilgames, more commonly known as Gilgamesh. The "Epic of Gilgamesh" most commonly refereed to is a much later construction, the earliest actual Sumerian poems about Bilgames (Which are still well after when he actually lived) are very different. Enkidu is not a wild-man who needed to be tamed, he has no origin story, he's just a loyal friend and partner (and possibly Lover) of Bilgames. Also in the Sumerian poems Bilgames dies first and it is Enkidu who mourns him.
One of the Bilgames poems lacks a parallel story in the latter Epic. "Bilgames and Aga", which is about his conflict with King Aga of Kish, the successor of Enmebaragesi.
Bilgames/Gilgamesh is sometimes cited as a son of Lugalbanda, but the Sumerian Kingslist calls him "The Son of Lilu" a phrase often translated Phantom, but also taken to mean an Incubus (Male Sucubus) and associated with Lilith. Lilith would in medieval times become the alleged first wife of Adam in Jewish folklore. But her original Sumerian origin story was as a "Sacred Prostitute" in the service of Inanna in Uruk. It's possible both names refer to the same man, or that Bilgames was adopted, or one was his step father by marriage. Bilgames' mother is always refereed to as the goddess Ninsun, who I'm simply going to randomly guess was a daughter of Nimrod.
One of the most noted things about Gilgamesh is his having traveled to meet the man who built the Ark and survived the Flood. This event isn't depicted directly in the surviving Sumerian Bilgames poems, but it is mentioned. In the Sumerian poems the Noah figure is named Ziusudra rather then the more well known Utnapishtim of the later Epic of Gilgamesh.
Noah lived 350 years after The Flood, the time of Bilgames could very well have been that early after The Flood. If he was a nephew or grandson of Nimrod as I suspect, that would make him the same generation as Eber or Peleg, Peleg actually died before Noah did.
So I feel I have succeeded in identifying Nimrod's true place in early history. And in so doing connected the first 10 and a half chapters of Genesis with the earliest recorded History.
If you want to read the Enmerkar and Bilgames Sumerian poems, they are online including English translations here.
http://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/catalogue/catalogue1.htm
I am well aware this theory has been suggested before (most notably by David Rohl), I have however added my own new contributions and twists to it.
Now to discus this Enmerkar in more detail. He's second only to Gilgamesh among the heroes of ancient Sumerian literature. Gilgamesh is also of the same Dynasty, a generation or two later.
In Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta a previous confusion of the languages of mankind is mentioned. This agrees with the Biblical conclusion I came to earlier, Nimrod didn't instigate Babel (at least not originally) but came sometime later, though definitely still when it was a fairly recent memory. Aside from founding Uruk, Enmerkar is said here to have had a temple built at Eridu, and is even credited with the invention of writing on clay tablets, for the purpose of threatening Aratta into submission. Enmerkar furthermore seeks to restore the disrupted linguistic unity of the inhabited regions around Uruk, listed as Shubur, Hamazi, Sumer, Uri-ki (the region around Akkad), and the Martu land.
This, and the other three major legends about Enmerkar chiefly revolve around his conflict with a Kingdom called Aratta, and it's ruler En-suhgir-ana. Aratta obviously sounds a lot like Ararat, but most scholars won't connect them because they are used to the traditional identification of Ararat referring to a mountain in Turkey, and these texts clearly seem to place Aratta in northern Iran.
But Bob Conruke has shown that The Bible clearly places Ararat in northern Iran.
http://www.baseinstitute.org/pages/noahs_ark/17
He even addresses the connection between Ararat and Armenia.
From Genesis 10 and other sources referenced in Bill Cooper's After The Flood this region is indeed likely to be one of the earliest major settlements of Japheth's descendants (Gomer and Madai chiefly). Some Rabbinical traditions (like the so called book of Jasher from medieval times), suggest there was a war or conflict between Nimrod and Japheth (or Japheth's descendants).
According to the ancient Armenian historian Moses of Khorene and Georgian historian Leonti Mroveli. Hayk was a Son of Togarmah son of Gomer son of Japheth who founded Armenia and inherited Arrarat. Hayk is said to have fought wars with a Mesopotamian king named Bel who is sometimes identified with Nimrod. Though to the Greeks Belus was the father of Ninus.
Enmerkar's successor was Lugalbanda, who appears in the narratives about Enmerkar as a military figure. It's possible that Lugalbanda was just an interim military governor ruling Uruk, and that the rule of Sumer as a whole went to Etana in Kish, who is said to have "consolidated all the foreign countries". Although his reign has yet to be archaeologically attested, his name is found in later legendary tablets, and Etana is sometimes regarded as the first king and founder of Kish himself.
Etana has been a Nimrod candidate on some websites I've visited. The Evidence for Enmerkar far outweighs the evidence for Etana in my view. But maybe it's not impossible Etana and Enmerkar are the same person simply known by different names in different cities. But for now my working theory is that they are different people.
Etana could easily have been one of Cush's other sons, and the brother of Nimrod, creating possible parallels to Set overthrowing Osiris in Egyptian mythology, and many other myths about a a tyrant becoming King by killing his brother to latter be avenged by his brother's son. Zababa was the name of the patron deity of Kish, which makes Sabtah or Sabtecha seem the likely candidates to me.
The next King of Uruk was Dumuzid, who's name is another form of Tammuz. Modern mythology makes him the Son of Nimrod and likely an inspiration for figures like Osiris and/or Horus, I'm skeptical of all that, but it could fit here. Dumuzid was captured by Enmebaragesi of Kish, the earliest ruler on the kings-list whose name is attested directly from archaeology. So we are at the dawn of recorded history now.
There are two Dumuzids on the Kings-list. The Antediluvian one is who the Tammuz myths are usually attributed to. But I believe that's because of Confusion, while I do think some real Pre-Flood history may be remembered in the myths associated with the Antediluvian Sumerian Kings, I believe this was the only real Dumuzid. The Tammuz myths are clearly heavily mythologized and harder to identify with history anyway, because they revolve around Inanna. But in part I feel this comes from this Dumuzid's relationship with the High Priestess of Inanna, who's Temple was in Uruk, and the sacred Marriage ritual that was key to the religion of Uruk. I suspect the same thing about Inanna's role in the Gilgamesh legends. Indeed every other myth about Inanna is known to be about the importance of Uruk.
Dumuzid was succeeded by Bilgames, more commonly known as Gilgamesh. The "Epic of Gilgamesh" most commonly refereed to is a much later construction, the earliest actual Sumerian poems about Bilgames (Which are still well after when he actually lived) are very different. Enkidu is not a wild-man who needed to be tamed, he has no origin story, he's just a loyal friend and partner (and possibly Lover) of Bilgames. Also in the Sumerian poems Bilgames dies first and it is Enkidu who mourns him.
One of the Bilgames poems lacks a parallel story in the latter Epic. "Bilgames and Aga", which is about his conflict with King Aga of Kish, the successor of Enmebaragesi.
Bilgames/Gilgamesh is sometimes cited as a son of Lugalbanda, but the Sumerian Kingslist calls him "The Son of Lilu" a phrase often translated Phantom, but also taken to mean an Incubus (Male Sucubus) and associated with Lilith. Lilith would in medieval times become the alleged first wife of Adam in Jewish folklore. But her original Sumerian origin story was as a "Sacred Prostitute" in the service of Inanna in Uruk. It's possible both names refer to the same man, or that Bilgames was adopted, or one was his step father by marriage. Bilgames' mother is always refereed to as the goddess Ninsun, who I'm simply going to randomly guess was a daughter of Nimrod.
One of the most noted things about Gilgamesh is his having traveled to meet the man who built the Ark and survived the Flood. This event isn't depicted directly in the surviving Sumerian Bilgames poems, but it is mentioned. In the Sumerian poems the Noah figure is named Ziusudra rather then the more well known Utnapishtim of the later Epic of Gilgamesh.
Noah lived 350 years after The Flood, the time of Bilgames could very well have been that early after The Flood. If he was a nephew or grandson of Nimrod as I suspect, that would make him the same generation as Eber or Peleg, Peleg actually died before Noah did.
So I feel I have succeeded in identifying Nimrod's true place in early history. And in so doing connected the first 10 and a half chapters of Genesis with the earliest recorded History.
If you want to read the Enmerkar and Bilgames Sumerian poems, they are online including English translations here.
http://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/catalogue/catalogue1.htm
I am well aware this theory has been suggested before (most notably by David Rohl), I have however added my own new contributions and twists to it.
Nimrod and Babel identified Part 1
First I want to say I'm skeptical of the common assumption that Nimrod
was the instigator of the Babel project. Extra Biblical traditions,
both Jewish and Christian, have been making this assumption since at
least as far back as Josephus. But The Bible itself doesn't really say
that. And I feel that sometimes the more nearly unanimous an
extra-Biblical assumption is the more likely it is it's completely
wrong.
Babel is discussed in the first part of Genesis 11, which is in fact the Prequel to what's discussed in Genesis 10. Genesis 10 tells us about how the different nations divided, 11 then goes back and explains for us why.
The city of Babel is cited as one of Nimrod's cities, it's mentioned first, but that doesn't mean it was Nimrod's capital. Genesis 14:1 also lists the King of Shinar first, but it's later made clear the King of Elam is the leader of that alliance. Shinar/Babel is a focal point from the Biblical view
of History, so The Holy Spirit will often list it first, whether by the
contemporary secular reckoning it should be or not. Genesis 11 clearly
implied Babel is the only City in existence at this time, so this
project in my view can't be the result of Nimrod's Imperialism.
Another detail about Babel I want to point out. "may reach unto" is not in the Hebrew text, the popular view of the Babel Tower and it's intent is entirely wrong. What they where making was their own heaven at the Top of the Tower, it's the birth of Idolatry, not merely an engineering feat. Nor was it a portal or "Stargate" or any other Sci-Fi concept you want to read into it.
The Tower of Babel was the first Ziggurat, since new Ziggurats where constructed later, I do think it's possible that when Nimrod was ruling Babel later that he may have restarted the project. Or maybe not, we don't know.
Many mistakes are made in trying to identify Nimrod historically by Christian scholars wanting to make countless ancient mythical heroes connected to Nimrod. And their attempts to identify a verifiable figure from the ancienthistory and archaeology of Mesopotamia are always trying too hard to pick someone very well known and so often wind up too late.
He's certainly not Hammurabi, or the same person as Genesis 14's King of Shinar (who I don't think was Hammurabi either, but that theory is popular). He's not Sargon of Akkad, though I myself was attracted to that theory before I was more informed. Nor is he Gilgamesh, though I believe Gilgamesh is at least in the right basic historical context.
And he did not have a wife named Semiramis. Semiramis comes from Hellenistic Greek historians giving their very confused mythologized account of Mesopotamian and Syrian antiquity. The name is a Hellenization of Shammuramat or Sammu-ramat who was a Queen of Assyria between 811 and 808 B.C. The Greek mythologizing of her begins with Herodotus, but he doesn't do any of the major exaggerations yet, if anything his implied chronology made her more recent, not more ancient. Latter Greek sources make her sometimes contemporary with the Fall of Troy (1182 B.C.), but others would try to place her supposed husband Ninus over 2000 B.C.
Ninus was the supposed founder of Nineveh, so he probably does have attributes of ancient memories of Nimrod added into him.. Modern Christian scholars get obsessed with Semiramis, Hislop'sscholarship was very flawed, and people like Hunt have followed him with little adjustment.
Is Babel the same as the Babylon we know today? The name is the same, but lots of times new cities are built with older names, and the Babylon of Hammurabi and Nebuchadnezzar seems to in fact be basically one of the younger major cities of ancient Mesopotamia.
Historical tablets (like the so-called "Weidner Chronicle" ) state that Sargon of Akkad (23rd century BC) dug up the original "Babylon" and rebuilt it near Akkad, though some scholars suspect this may in fact refer to a much later Assyrian King Sargon (there were two). The exact location of Akkad isn't known either, but it's assumed it was basically near Hammurabi's Babylon but on the Tigris, possibly by were Seleucia and Baghdad would be built later.
Simplicius of Cilicia (ad Arist De Caelo. ii. 503A) recorded that Callisthenes in the 4th century BC traveled to Babylon and discovered astronomical observations on cuneiform tablets stretching back 1903 years before the taking of Babylon by Alexander the Great in 331 BC. This makes the sum 1903 + 331 which equals 2234 BC as the founding date for Babylon. A similar figure is found in Berossus, who according to Pliny (Natrual History vii 57) stated that astronomical observations commenced at Babylon 490 years before the Greek era of Phoroneus, and consequently in 2243 BC. Stephanus of Byzantium, wrote that Babylon was built 1002 years before the date (given by Hellanicus of Mytilene) for the siege of Troy (1229 BC), which would date Babylon's foundation to 2231 BC.
Each of those dates is during the reign of Sargon of Akkad (2272-2217 BC)) according to the Short Chronology. Ctesias, who is quoted by Diodorus Siculus and in George Syncellus's Chronographia, claimed to have access to manuscripts from Babylonian archives which date the founding of Babylon to 2286 BC by Belus who reigned as Babylon's first king for fifty five years. Sargon reigns 56 years. The date is only 14-16 years before his reign. The middle chronology would have Sargon reign begin in 2334 BC. My views on revised chronology do not change the Mesopotamian Kings Lists, I favor the Short Chronology.
Dalley Stephanie, Oriental Institute SAOC, pp. 25–33 discusses the well-known interchangeability of "Babylon" and "Eridu" in ancient texts, and proposes a hypothesis that the name "Babylon" was also applied to many other cities in Mesopotamia at times.
The Sumerian Kings list has Eridu as the oldest city, but the much later Greek version of the King-list by Berossus (c. 200 BC) reads "Babylon" in place of "Eridu" in the earlier versions, as the name of the oldest city where "the kingship was lowered from Heaven". The Ziggurat ruins of Eridu are far older than any others.
One name of Eridu in cuneiform logograms was pronounced "NUN.KI" ("the Mighty Place") in Sumerian, but much later the same "NUN.KI" was understood to mean the city of Babylon. If they had this name in common, they certainly could have had others.
In Sumerian mythology, Eridu was the home of the Abzu temple of the god Enki, the Sumerian counterpart of the Akkadian water-god Ea. Like all the Sumerian and Babylonian gods, Enki/Ea began as a local god, who came to share, according to the later cosmology, with Anu and Enlil, the rule of the cosmos. His kingdom was the waters that surrounded the World and lay below it (Sumerian ab=water; zu=far).
The stories of Inanna, goddess of Uruk, describe how she had to go to Eridu in order to receive the gifts of civilization. At first Enki, the god of Eridu attempted to retrieve these sources of his power, but later willingly accepted that Uruk was now the center of the land. This seems to be a mythical reference to the transfer of power northward.
Babylonian texts also talk of the creation of Eridu by the god Marduk as the first city, "the holy city, the dwelling of their [the other gods] delight".
Uruk, which was mentioned above, is the city the Bible refers to as Erech, another of Nimrod's core cities.
I think Babel was originally just a nickname for the City, a Hebrew name meaning "confusion" but the pagans reinterpreted it to mean "gate of the gods". It wasn't until the new NUN.KI was founded by Sargon that Babylon became a city's official name.
The Sumerian Kings List has the beginning of Post-Flood kingship at Kish. Kish is a name clearly derived form Cush. But the King-lists itself I feel is trying to create a more ancient kingdom then it ever had, and I think this city was originally a Democracy of some sort, which also technically Genesis 11 implied Babel/Eridu was as well. The first listed ruler of Kish was Jushur (also transliterated Jucur, Gushur, Ngushur, Gishur, etc) which could also be derived from Cush. Second is Kullassina-bel, the name seems to be an Akkadian phrase meaning "All of them (were) lord". The following kings of Kish on the list preceding Etana are all names of animals. I will return to Etana later.
Since an earlier referenced myth has civilization traveling from Eridu to Uruk not Kish, I think Uruk's earliest Kings where in fact the first. It's first ruler was Mesh-ki-ang-gasher (Mèš-ki-áĝ-ga-še-er, Meš-ki-aĝ-gašer; also transliterated Mes-Kiag-Gasher, Mesh-Ki-Ang-Gasher, Meskiagkasher, Meckiagkacer and variants) you can clearly see there connection to the variants of Jushur and to Cush. He is also refereed to on the King's list as the son of Utu, The Sun. His son and successor was Enmerkar. But besides the Kings List Enmerkar himself seems to be treated as the son of Utu and founder or first king of Uruk.
The myths above do also seem to treat Eridu as having been a Pre-Flood city, but the same is true of Beorsous referencing Babylon as the first city. The Bible only mentions one city in the Pre-Flood world, in Genesis 4:17.
The face value assumption is that Cain founded the city and named it after his son. But Cain was also told he'd be a Vagabound till he died before this. That the very end of the verse gives Enoch (Cain's son not the Genesis 5 Enoch), is the only reason we think Cain was the one who founded a city and named it after his son. The text could just as easily otherwise be read as saying Enoch founded a city and named it after, or to more properly represent the Hebrew according to the name of his son.
Looking at my Greens Masoretic Text based Interlinear-Bible that one occurrence of the name Enoch at the end of verse 17 is different from the others, there is something added after it. Maybe we've misunderstood what it really says. Maybe it was called Enoch temporarily but he also planed to change it once he had a son and the son was named. Most of the time in Biblical custom the mother names the child at birth, so Enoch may not have known in advance what his son would be named. Or maybe the intent of the name being there was to identify the one founding the city not what the city was named.
The name of Enoch's son we're told in verse 18 was Irad. The name Eridu could possibly come from Irad. Maybe Babel was also thought of as being a Post-Flood refunding of the great Pre-Flood city.
The Bible doesn't always list the actual real names of the foreign rulers it refers to, but often gives them names that are Hebraic puns on their names. Nimrod is refereed to as a Mighty Hunter, the element 'kar' in Enmerkar was the Sumerian word for 'hunter'. Thus the king of Uruk's name consists of a nomen plus epithet - Enmer 'the hunter'. Ancient Hebrew was originally written without vowels, in early copies of Genesis the name Nimrod would simply have been written 'nmrod' or 'nmrd'. The name Enmer could also have been transcribed into Hebrew as 'nmr' (the En prefix is only one symbol in cuneiform) - identical to Nimrod but for the last 'o' and 'd'. The added 'od' at the end I can't guess the meaning of now.
Eusebius of Caesarea in the early 4th century cited the Babylonian historian Berossus in the 3rd century BC as stating that the first king after the flood was Euechoios of Chaldea, and identified him with Nimrod. George Syncellus (c. 800) also had access to Berossus, and he too identified Euechoios with The Biblical Nimrod.
More recently, Sumerologists have suggested additionally connecting both this Euechoios, and the king of Babylon and grandfather of Gilgamos who appears in the oldest copies of Aelian (c. 200 AD) as Euechoros . Later more commonly cited copies of Aelian have Sacchorae in place of Euechoros. Gilgamesh was called the son of Enmerkar's successor Lugal-Banda, so Alien could have assumed him to be his grandfather regardless. Looking at how some Egyptian names got transliterated into Greek, I could easily see Enmerkar becoming Euechoios or Euechoros.
I'm going to continue this and discus Enmerkar in more detail in the next post.
Babel is discussed in the first part of Genesis 11, which is in fact the Prequel to what's discussed in Genesis 10. Genesis 10 tells us about how the different nations divided, 11 then goes back and explains for us why.
The city of Babel is cited as one of Nimrod's cities, it's mentioned first, but that doesn't mean it was Nimrod's capital. Genesis 14:1 also lists the King of Shinar first, but it's later made clear the King of Elam is the leader of that alliance. Shinar/Babel is a focal point from the Biblical
Another detail about Babel I want to point out. "may reach unto" is not in the Hebrew text, the popular view of the Babel Tower and it's intent is entirely wrong. What they where making was their own heaven at the Top of the Tower, it's the birth of Idolatry, not merely an engineering feat. Nor was it a portal or "Stargate" or any other Sci-Fi concept you want to read into it.
The Tower of Babel was the first Ziggurat, since new Ziggurats where constructed later, I do think it's possible that when Nimrod was ruling Babel later that he may have restarted the project. Or maybe not, we don't know.
Many mistakes are made in trying to identify Nimrod historically by Christian scholars wanting to make countless ancient mythical heroes connected to Nimrod. And their attempts to identify a verifiable figure from the ancient
He's certainly not Hammurabi, or the same person as Genesis 14's King of Shinar (who I don't think was Hammurabi either, but that theory is popular). He's not Sargon of Akkad, though I myself was attracted to that theory before I was more informed. Nor is he Gilgamesh, though I believe Gilgamesh is at least in the right basic historical context.
And he did not have a wife named Semiramis. Semiramis comes from Hellenistic Greek historians giving their very confused mythologized account of Mesopotamian and Syrian antiquity. The name is a Hellenization of Shammuramat or Sammu-ramat who was a Queen of Assyria between 811 and 808 B.C. The Greek mythologizing of her begins with Herodotus, but he doesn't do any of the major exaggerations yet, if anything his implied chronology made her more recent, not more ancient. Latter Greek sources make her sometimes contemporary with the Fall of Troy (1182 B.C.), but others would try to place her supposed husband Ninus over 2000 B.C.
Ninus was the supposed founder of Nineveh, so he probably does have attributes of ancient memories of Nimrod added into him.. Modern Christian scholars get obsessed with Semiramis, Hislop's
Is Babel the same as the Babylon we know today? The name is the same, but lots of times new cities are built with older names, and the Babylon of Hammurabi and Nebuchadnezzar seems to in fact be basically one of the younger major cities of ancient Mesopotamia.
Historical tablets (like the so-called "Weidner Chronicle" ) state that Sargon of Akkad (23rd century BC) dug up the original "Babylon" and rebuilt it near Akkad, though some scholars suspect this may in fact refer to a much later Assyrian King Sargon (there were two). The exact location of Akkad isn't known either, but it's assumed it was basically near Hammurabi's Babylon but on the Tigris, possibly by were Seleucia and Baghdad would be built later.
Simplicius of Cilicia (ad Arist De Caelo. ii. 503A) recorded that Callisthenes in the 4th century BC traveled to Babylon and discovered astronomical observations on cuneiform tablets stretching back 1903 years before the taking of Babylon by Alexander the Great in 331 BC. This makes the sum 1903 + 331 which equals 2234 BC as the founding date for Babylon. A similar figure is found in Berossus, who according to Pliny (Natrual History vii 57) stated that astronomical observations commenced at Babylon 490 years before the Greek era of Phoroneus, and consequently in 2243 BC. Stephanus of Byzantium, wrote that Babylon was built 1002 years before the date (given by Hellanicus of Mytilene) for the siege of Troy (1229 BC), which would date Babylon's foundation to 2231 BC.
Each of those dates is during the reign of Sargon of Akkad (2272-2217 BC)) according to the Short Chronology. Ctesias, who is quoted by Diodorus Siculus and in George Syncellus's Chronographia, claimed to have access to manuscripts from Babylonian archives which date the founding of Babylon to 2286 BC by Belus who reigned as Babylon's first king for fifty five years. Sargon reigns 56 years. The date is only 14-16 years before his reign. The middle chronology would have Sargon reign begin in 2334 BC. My views on revised chronology do not change the Mesopotamian Kings Lists, I favor the Short Chronology.
Dalley Stephanie, Oriental Institute SAOC, pp. 25–33 discusses the well-known interchangeability of "Babylon" and "Eridu" in ancient texts, and proposes a hypothesis that the name "Babylon" was also applied to many other cities in Mesopotamia at times.
The Sumerian Kings list has Eridu as the oldest city, but the much later Greek version of the King-list by Berossus (c. 200 BC) reads "Babylon" in place of "Eridu" in the earlier versions, as the name of the oldest city where "the kingship was lowered from Heaven". The Ziggurat ruins of Eridu are far older than any others.
One name of Eridu in cuneiform logograms was pronounced "NUN.KI" ("the Mighty Place") in Sumerian, but much later the same "NUN.KI" was understood to mean the city of Babylon. If they had this name in common, they certainly could have had others.
In Sumerian mythology, Eridu was the home of the Abzu temple of the god Enki, the Sumerian counterpart of the Akkadian water-god Ea. Like all the Sumerian and Babylonian gods, Enki/Ea began as a local god, who came to share, according to the later cosmology, with Anu and Enlil, the rule of the cosmos. His kingdom was the waters that surrounded the World and lay below it (Sumerian ab=water; zu=far).
The stories of Inanna, goddess of Uruk, describe how she had to go to Eridu in order to receive the gifts of civilization. At first Enki, the god of Eridu attempted to retrieve these sources of his power, but later willingly accepted that Uruk was now the center of the land. This seems to be a mythical reference to the transfer of power northward.
Babylonian texts also talk of the creation of Eridu by the god Marduk as the first city, "the holy city, the dwelling of their [the other gods] delight".
Uruk, which was mentioned above, is the city the Bible refers to as Erech, another of Nimrod's core cities.
I think Babel was originally just a nickname for the City, a Hebrew name meaning "confusion" but the pagans reinterpreted it to mean "gate of the gods". It wasn't until the new NUN.KI was founded by Sargon that Babylon became a city's official name.
The Sumerian Kings List has the beginning of Post-Flood kingship at Kish. Kish is a name clearly derived form Cush. But the King-lists itself I feel is trying to create a more ancient kingdom then it ever had, and I think this city was originally a Democracy of some sort, which also technically Genesis 11 implied Babel/Eridu was as well. The first listed ruler of Kish was Jushur (also transliterated Jucur, Gushur, Ngushur, Gishur, etc) which could also be derived from Cush. Second is Kullassina-bel, the name seems to be an Akkadian phrase meaning "All of them (were) lord". The following kings of Kish on the list preceding Etana are all names of animals. I will return to Etana later.
Since an earlier referenced myth has civilization traveling from Eridu to Uruk not Kish, I think Uruk's earliest Kings where in fact the first. It's first ruler was Mesh-ki-ang-gasher (Mèš-ki-áĝ-ga-še-er, Meš-ki-aĝ-gašer; also transliterated Mes-Kiag-Gasher, Mesh-Ki-Ang-Gasher, Meskiagkasher, Meckiagkacer and variants) you can clearly see there connection to the variants of Jushur and to Cush. He is also refereed to on the King's list as the son of Utu, The Sun. His son and successor was Enmerkar. But besides the Kings List Enmerkar himself seems to be treated as the son of Utu and founder or first king of Uruk.
The myths above do also seem to treat Eridu as having been a Pre-Flood city, but the same is true of Beorsous referencing Babylon as the first city. The Bible only mentions one city in the Pre-Flood world, in Genesis 4:17.
The face value assumption is that Cain founded the city and named it after his son. But Cain was also told he'd be a Vagabound till he died before this. That the very end of the verse gives Enoch (Cain's son not the Genesis 5 Enoch), is the only reason we think Cain was the one who founded a city and named it after his son. The text could just as easily otherwise be read as saying Enoch founded a city and named it after, or to more properly represent the Hebrew according to the name of his son.
Looking at my Greens Masoretic Text based Interlinear-Bible that one occurrence of the name Enoch at the end of verse 17 is different from the others, there is something added after it. Maybe we've misunderstood what it really says. Maybe it was called Enoch temporarily but he also planed to change it once he had a son and the son was named. Most of the time in Biblical custom the mother names the child at birth, so Enoch may not have known in advance what his son would be named. Or maybe the intent of the name being there was to identify the one founding the city not what the city was named.
The name of Enoch's son we're told in verse 18 was Irad. The name Eridu could possibly come from Irad. Maybe Babel was also thought of as being a Post-Flood refunding of the great Pre-Flood city.
The Bible doesn't always list the actual real names of the foreign rulers it refers to, but often gives them names that are Hebraic puns on their names. Nimrod is refereed to as a Mighty Hunter, the element 'kar' in Enmerkar was the Sumerian word for 'hunter'. Thus the king of Uruk's name consists of a nomen plus epithet - Enmer 'the hunter'. Ancient Hebrew was originally written without vowels, in early copies of Genesis the name Nimrod would simply have been written 'nmrod' or 'nmrd'. The name Enmer could also have been transcribed into Hebrew as 'nmr' (the En prefix is only one symbol in cuneiform) - identical to Nimrod but for the last 'o' and 'd'. The added 'od' at the end I can't guess the meaning of now.
Eusebius of Caesarea in the early 4th century cited the Babylonian historian Berossus in the 3rd century BC as stating that the first king after the flood was Euechoios of Chaldea, and identified him with Nimrod. George Syncellus (c. 800) also had access to Berossus, and he too identified Euechoios with The Biblical Nimrod.
More recently, Sumerologists have suggested additionally connecting both this Euechoios, and the king of Babylon and grandfather of Gilgamos who appears in the oldest copies of Aelian (c. 200 AD) as Euechoros . Later more commonly cited copies of Aelian have Sacchorae in place of Euechoros. Gilgamesh was called the son of Enmerkar's successor Lugal-Banda, so Alien could have assumed him to be his grandfather regardless. Looking at how some Egyptian names got transliterated into Greek, I could easily see Enmerkar becoming Euechoios or Euechoros.
I'm going to continue this and discus Enmerkar in more detail in the next post.
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