Leonidas and the 300 Spartans a borrowing from Hebrew epic

by Damien F. Mackey Morton Scott Enslin has intuitively referred to the Book of Judith’s Bethulia incident as the “Judean Thermopylae” (The Book of Judith: Greek Text with an English Translation, p. 80). Introductory We have found that not all so-called Spartans were really ancient Spartans, but were fictitious characters based on actual Hebrews (and Egyptians). The famous Lawgiver, Lycurgus, for instance, was based on the Hebrew Moses, with whom Lycurgus is so often compared: Moses and Lycurgus https://www.academia.edu/27900244/Moses_and_Lycurgus The esteemed Spartan “Lawgiver”, Lycurgus, is so reminiscent of the biblical Moses as to inspire scholarly efforts to attempt running ‘parallel lives’ between these two characters. Given the semi-legendary nature of early ancient Greek ‘history’, the apparent ‘Dark Ages’, and the constant borrowings of Greece from its more easterly neighbours, might not “Lycurgus” be simply another of those manifold Greek appropriations from the Hebrews? And the celebrated Spartan admiral, Lysander, may perhaps have been taken from a real Egyptian admiral, Usan[a]huru: Admiral Lysander was probably an Egyptian (2) Admiral Lysander was probably an Egyptian The Greek writers (whoever they really were) have supposed Greek navy men, such as Polycrates, Lysander, fighting in Greek wars, but also interfering in Egypto-Persian battles. These supposed Greeks – and presumably their Greek wars (at least in part) – were a fiction. The epic account of Leonidas and the 300 Spartans pitted against the Persian behemoth, as known especially from Herodotus, appears to have been boldly lifted from Hebrew epics, such as the story of Gideon and the Judith drama. Like Gideon, with his 300 pitted against a large Midianite army (Judges 7), Leonidas is supposed to have rallied 300 Spartans. Gideon won, Leonidas lost – but compare the names: G ID EON L ID EON (with the Greek ending -AS) So-called Foundations of Western Civilisation Professor Paul Cartledge’s well written book about the alleged Battle of Thermopylae between the Spartans and the Persians in 480 BC holds firmly to the familiar line of British writers and historians that our Western civilisation was based front and centre upon the Greeks. Thus, for instance, he writes in his book, Thermopylae: The Battle That Changed the World (Macmillan, 2006, p. 4): “The Greeks were second to none in embracing that contrary combination of the ghastly and the ennobling, which takes us straight back to the fount and origin of Western culture and ‘civilization’ - to Homer’s Iliad, the first masterpiece of all Western literature; to Aeschylus’s Persians, the first surviving masterpiece of Western drama; to the coruscating war epigrams of Simonides and, last but most relevantly of all, to Herodotus’s Histories, the first masterpiece of Western historiography”. And this is not the only occasion in his book where professor Cartledge expresses such effusive sentiments. The problem is, however, that - as it seems to me, at least - these very foundations, these so-called ‘founts and origins’ of ‘Western culture and civilization’, had for their very own bases some significant non-Greek influences and inspirations. An important one of these non-Greek influences was the Book of Judith, traditionally thought to have been written substantially by the high-priest Joakim in c. 700 BC. Compare that to the uncertainty of authorship surrounding those major works labelled Homeric: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homer The Homeric Question—by whom, when, where and under what circumstances were the Iliad and Odyssey composed—continues to be debated. Broadly speaking, modern scholarly opinion falls into two groups. One holds that most of the Iliad and (according to some) the Odyssey are the works of a single poet of genius. The other considers the Homeric poems to be the result of a process of working and re-working by many contributors, and that "Homer" is best seen as a label for an entire tradition. …. On previous occasions I have suggested that parts of The Iliad had appropriated key incidents to be found in the Book of Judith, with ‘Helen’ taking her cue from the Jewish heroine, Judith. Accordingly, I have written: “As for Judith, the Greeks appear to have substituted this beautiful Jewish heroine with their own legendary Helen, whose ‘face launched a thousand ships’. Compare for instance these striking similarities (Judith and The Iliad): The beautiful woman praised by the elders at the city gates: "When [the elders of Bethulia] saw [Judith] transformed in appearance and dressed differently, they were very greatly astounded at her beauty" (Judith 10:7). "Now the elders of the people were sitting by the Skaian gates…. When they saw Helen coming … they spoke softly to each other with winged words: 'No shame that the Trojans and the well-greaved Achaians should suffer agonies for long years over a woman like this - she is fearfully like the immortal goddesses to look at'" [The Iliad., pp. 44-45]. This theme of incredible beauty - plus the related view that "no shame" should be attached to the enemy on account of it - is picked up again a few verses later in the Book of Judith (v.19) when the Assyrian soldiers who accompany Judith and her maid to Holofernes "marveled at [Judith's] beauty and admired the Israelites, judging them by her … 'Who can despise these people, who have women like this among them?'" Nevertheless: 'It is not wise to leave one of their men alive, for if we let them go they will be able to beguile the whole world!' (Judith 10:19). 'But even so, for all her beauty, let her go back in the ships, and not be left here a curse to us and our children'. The dependence of The Iliad upon the Book of Judith may go even deeper, though, to its very main theme. For, previously I had written: “Achilles Many similarities have been noted too between The Iliad and the Old Testament, including the earlier-mentioned likenesses between the young Bellerophon and Joseph. Again, Achilles' being pursued by the river Xanthos which eventually turns dry (Book 21) reminds one of Moses' drying up of the sea (Exodus 14:21). Was there really a person by the name of Agamemnon? [See Is Homer Historical? in Archaeology Odyssey, May/Jun 2004, pp. 26-35]. The interview of Professor Nagy of Harvard says ‘no, there wasn't’. Achilles’ fierce argument with Agamemnon, commander-in-chief of the Greeks, at Troy - Achilles' anger being the very theme of The Iliad [Introduction, p. xvi: "The Iliad announces its subject in the first line. The poem will tell of the anger of Achilleus and its consequences - consequences for the Achaians, the Trojans, and Achilleus himself"] - is merely a highly dramatized Greek version of the disagreement in the Book of Judith between Achior [a name not unlike the ‘Greek’ Achilles] and the furious Assyrian commander-in-chief, "Holofernes", at the siege of Bethulia, Judith's town”. And the famous Trojan Horse? I continued: “If the very main theme of The Iliad may have been lifted by the Greeks from the Book of Judith, then might not even the Homeric idea of the Trojan Horse ruse to capture Troy have been inspired by Judith's own ruse to take the Assyrian camp? [According to R. Graves, The Greek Myths (Penguin Books, combined ed., 1992), p. 697 (1, 2. My emphasis): "Classical commentators on Homer were dissatisfied with the story of the wooden horse. They suggested, variously, that the Greeks used a horse-like engine for breaking down the walls (Pausanias: i. 23. 10) … that Antenor admitted the Greeks into Troy by a postern which had a horse painted on it…. Troy is quite likely to have been stormed by means of a wheeled wooden tower, faced with wet horse hides as a protection against incendiary darts…". (Pausanius 2nd century AD: Wrote `Description of Greece'.)]. What may greatly serve to strengthen this suggestion is the uncannily 'Judith-like' trickery of a certain Sinon, a wily Greek, as narrated in the detailed description of the Trojan Horse in Book Two of Virgil's Aeneid. Sinon, whilst claiming to have become estranged from his own people, because of their treachery and sins, was in fact bent upon deceiving the Trojans about the purpose of the wooden horse, in order "to open Troy to the Greeks". I shall set out here the main parallels that I find on this score between the Aeneid and the Book of Judith. Firstly, the name Sinon may recall Judith's ancestor Simeon, son of Israel (Judith 8:1; 9:2). Whilst Sinon, when apprehended by the enemy, is "dishevelled" and "defenceless", Judith, also defenseless, is greatly admired for her appearance by the members of the Assyrian patrol who apprehend her (Judith 10:14). As Sinon is asked sympathetically by the Trojans 'what he had come to tell …' and 'why he had allowed himself to be taken prisoner', so does the Assyrian commander-in-chief, Holofernes, 'kindly' ask Judith: '… tell me why you have fled from [the Israelites] and have come over to us?' Just as Sinon, when brought before the Trojan king Priam, promises that he 'will confess the whole truth' – though having no intention of doing that – so does Judith lie to Holofernes: 'I will say nothing false to my lord this night' (Judith 11:5). Sinon then gives his own treacherous account of events, including the supposed sacrileges of the Greeks due to their tearing of the Palladium, image of the goddess Athene, from her own sacred Temple in Troy; slaying the guards on the heights of the citadel and then daring to touch the sacred bands on the head of the virgin goddess with blood on their hands. For these 'sacrileges' the Greeks were doomed. Likewise Judith assures Holofernes of victory because of the supposed sacrilegious conduct that the Israelites have planned (e.g. to eat forbidden and consecrated food), even in Jerusalem (11:11-15). Sinon concludes – in relation to the Trojan options regarding what to do with the enigmatic wooden horse – with an Achior-like statement: 'For if your hands violate this offering to Minerva, then total destruction shall fall upon the empire of Priam and the Trojans…. But if your hands raise it up into your city, Asia shall come unbidden in a mighty war to the walls of Pelops, and that is the fate in store for our descendants'. Whilst Sinon's words were full of cunning, Achior had been sincere when he had warned Holofernes – in words to which Judith will later allude deceitfully (11:9-10): 'So now, my master and my lord, if there is any oversight in this people [the Israelites] and they sin against their God and we find out their offense, then we can go up against them and defeat them. But if they are not a guilty nation, then let my lord pass them by; for their Lord and God will defend them, and we shall become the laughing-stock of the whole world' (Judith 5:20-21). [Similarly, Achilles fears to become 'a laughing-stock and a burden of the earth' (Plato's Apologia, Scene I, D. 5)]. These, Achior's words, were the very ones that had so enraged Holofernes and his soldiers (vv.22-24). And they would give the Greeks the theme for their greatest epic, The Iliad”. But all of this is as nothing when compared to what I have found to be the multiple: Similarities to The Odyssey of the Books of Job and Tobit https://www.academia.edu/8914220/Similarities_to_The_Odyssey_of_the_Books_of_Job_and_Tobit this Semitic literature presumably well pre-dating the fairy-tale Greek efforts. Unsatisfactory Foundations “It concerns a supposed night attack by loyalist Greeks on Xerxes’s camp in the very middle of the Thermopylae campaign with the aim of assassinating the Great King”. Herodotus So much concerning the truth of the supposed Battle of Thermopylae rests with Herodotus, whose Histories are thought to come closest of all to being a primary source for the account. “He and [the poet] Simonides” are, according to professor Paul Cartledge, the “principal contemporary Greek written source for Thermopylae”. And, on p. 224: “… Herodotus in my view remains as good as it gets: we either write a history of Thermopylae with him, or we do not write one at all”. One problem with this is that Herodotus was known as (alongside his more favourable epithet, the “Father of History”) - as professor Cartledge has also noted - the “Father of Lies”. Where does Greek history actually begin? The history of Philosophy - of whose origins the Greeks are typically credited - begins with shadowy ‘Ionian Greeks’, such as Thales of Miletus, whose real substance I believe resides in the very wise Joseph of Egypt. For an overview of all of this, see my: Re-Orienting to Zion the History of Ancient Philosophy (5) Re-Orienting to Zion the History of Ancient Philosophy Already I have de-Grecised such supposedly historical characters as Solon the Athenian statesman (who is but a Greek version of the Israelite King Solomon, and whose ‘laws’ appear to have been borrowed, at least in part, from the Jew, Nehemiah); Thales; Pythagoras; Empedocles, an apparent re-incarnation of Moses (Freud). And I have shown that Greek classics such as The Iliad and the Odyssey were heavily dependent upon earlier Hebrew literature. The ancient biblical scholar, Saint Jerome (c. 400 AD), had already noted, according to Orthodox pastor, Patrick H. Reardon (The Wide World of Tobit. Apocrypha’s Tobit and Literary Tradition), the resemblance of Tobit to Homer’s The Odyssey. The example that pastor Reardon gives, though, so typical of the biblical commentator’s tendency to infer pagan influence upon Hebrew literature, whilst demonstrating a definite similarity between Tobit and the Greek literature, imagines the author of Tobit to have appropriated a colourful episode from The Odyssey and inserted it into Tobit 11:9: http://www.touchstonemag.com/archives/article.php?id=12-02-036-f#ixzz2f1euwlrb “The resemblance of Tobit to the Odyssey in particular was not lost on that great student of literature, Jerome, as is evident in a single detail of his Latin translation of Tobit in the Vulgate. Intrigued by the literary merit of Tobit, but rejecting its canonicity, the jocose and sometimes prankish Jerome felt free to insert into his version an item straight out of the Odyssey—namely, the wagging of the dog’s tail on arriving home with Tobias in 11:9—Tunc praecucurrit canis, qui simul fuerat in via, et quasi nuntius adveniens blandimento suae caudae gaudebat—“Then the dog, which had been with them in the way, ran before, and coming as if it had brought the news, showed his joy by his fawning and wagging his tail.” …. No other ancient version of Tobit mentions either the tail or the wagging, but Jerome, ever the classicist, was confident his readers would remember the faithful but feeble old hound Argus, as the final act of his life, greeting the return of Odysseus to the home of his father: “he endeavored to wag his tail” (Odyssey 17.302). And to think that we owe this delightful gem to Jerome’s rejection of Tobit’s canonicity!” Reardon, continuing his theme of the dependence of Tobit, in part, upon, as he calls it here, “pagan themes”, finds further commonality with Greek literature, especially Antigone: “Furthermore, some readers have found in Tobit similarities to still other pagan themes, such as the legend of Admetus. …. More convincing, I believe, however, are points of contact with classical Greek theater. Martin Luther observed similarities between Tobit and Greek comedy … but one is even more impressed by resemblances that the Book of Tobit bears to a work of Greek tragedy—the Antigone of Sophocles. In both stories the moral stature of the heroes is chiefly exemplified in their bravely burying the dead in the face of official prohibition and at the risk of official punishment. In both cases a venerable moral tradition is maintained against a political tyranny destructive of piety. That same Greek drama, moreover, provides a further parallel to the blindness of Tobit in the character of blind Teiresias, himself also a man of an inner moral vision important to the theme of the play”. [End of quote] In light of all this - and what I have given above is very far from being exhaustive - and appreciating that those conventionally labelled as ‘Ionian Greeks’ may actually have been, in their origins, Hebrew biblical characters, then just how real is Herodotus of Ionian Greece (Halicarnassus)? And, can we be sure that the Histories attributed to him have been (anywhere nearly) properly dated? His name, Herod-, with a Greek ending (-otus), may actually bespeak a non-Greek ethnicity, and, indeed, a later period of time (say, closer to a Dionysius of Halicarnassus, C1st BC). Xerxes But, whatever may be the case with Herodotus, his classical version of “Xerxes” seems to have been based very heavily upon the Assyrian Great King, Sennacherib - another Book of Judith connection, given my view that Sennacherib was the actual Assyrian ruler of Nineveh named “Nebuchadnezzar” in Judith. E.g. 1:1: “In the twelfth year of the reign of Nebuchadnez′zar, who ruled over the Assyrians in the great city of Nin′eveh …”. Emmet Sweeney has marvellously shown this in the following comparisons (The Ramessides, Medes and Persians): SENNACHERIB XERXES Made war on Egypt in his third year, and fought a bitter war against the Greeks shortly thereafter. Made war on Egypt in his second year, and fought a bitter war against the Greeks shortly thereafter. Suppressed two major Babylonian rebellions. The first, in his second year, was led by Bel-Shimanni. The second, years later, was led by Shamash-eriba. Suppressed two major Babylonian rebellions. The first, in his third year, was led by Bel-ibni. The second, years later, was led by Mushezib-Marduk. The Babylonians were well-treated after the first rebellion, but savagely repressed after the second, when they captured and murdered Sennacherib’s viceroy, his own brother Ashur-nadin-shum. The Babylonians were well-treated after the first rebellion, but savagely repressed after the second, when they captured and murdered Xerxes’ satrap. After the second rebellion, Sennacherib massacred the inhabitants, razed the city walls and temples, and carried off the golden stature of Marduk. Thereafter the Babylonian gods were suppressed in favour of Ashur, who was made the supreme deity. After the second rebellion, Xerxes massacred the inhabitants, razed the city walls and temples, and carried off the golden stature of Bel-Marduk. Thereafter the Babylonian gods were suppressed in favour of Ahura-Mazda, who was made the supreme deity. Though I do not deny for a moment that Persia had a King Xerxes, a shortened version of Artaxerxes, the “Xerxes” of the Greeks is, however, largely fictitious. Diodorus of Sicily, C1st BC (presuming he did actually write later than Herodotus), will contribute to the fiction by including a Judith element (not mentioned by Herodotus) to the tale of “Xerxes” at Thermopylae. It is, in my opinion, just a re-run version of the assassination of “Holofernes”, admixed, perhaps, with the regicide of Sennacherib. Professor Cartledge has written of it (op. cit., p. 232): “It concerns a supposed night attack by loyalist Greeks on Xerxes’s camp in the very middle of the Thermopylae campaign with the aim of assassinating the Great King”. Based on the Book of Judith Drama Morton Scott Enslin has intuitively referred to the Book of Judith’s Bethulia incident as the “Judean Thermopylae” (The Book of Judith: Greek Text with an English Translation, p. 80). Comparisons between Book of Judith and the Battle of Thermopylae In both dramas we are introduced to a Great King, ruling in the East, who determines to conquer the West with a massive army. Scholars have wondered about the incredible size of the Persian army. “Almost all are agreed that Herodotus’ figure of 2,100,000, exclusive of followers, for the army (Bk VII. 184-85) is impossible” wrote F. Maurice in 1930 (“The Size of the Army of Xerxes in the Invasion of Greece 480 B. C.”, JHS, Vol. 50, Part 2 (1930), p. 211). Sennacherib’s Assyrian army of 185,000 was likely - discounting, as an unrealistic translation, the one million-strong army of “Zerah the Ethiopian” - the largest army ever to that time (and possibly even much later) to have been assembled. Apart from Kings, Chronicles and Isaiah, the same figure is referred to again in Maccabees, and in Herodotus’ Histories. The figure is not unrealistic for the neo-Assyrians, given that King Shalmaneser so-called III is known to have fielded an army of 120,000 men. (Fragments of the royal annals, from Calah, 3. lines 99–102: “In my fourteenth year, I mustered the people of the whole wide land, in countless numbers. I crossed the Euphrates at its flood with 120,000 of my soldiers”). Invading from the East, the armies must of necessity approach, now Greece, now Judah, from the North. Having successfully conquered everything in their path so far, the victors find that those peoples yet unconquered will speedily hand themselves over to their more powerful assailants. This process is known as ‘Medizing’ in the classical literature. In the Book of Judith, the all-conquering commander-in-chief, “Holofernes”, will receive as allies those who had formerly been his foes. And these, like the treacherous ones in the Thermopylae drama, will prove to be a thorn in the flesh of the few who have determined to resist the foreign onslaught. The armies arrive at a narrow pass, with defenders blocking their way. Thermopylae in the Herodotean account – “Bethulia” (best identified as Shechem) in the biblical Book of Judith. Dethroned Spartan King Demaratus, now an exile in Persia, will answer all of Xerxes’s questions about the Greek opposition, promising the King “to tell the whole truth—the kind of truth that you will not be able to prove false at a later date”. Most similarly Achior, probably born in Assyrian exile, will advise “Holofernes” about the Israelites, promising his superior (Judith 5:5): ‘I will tell you the truth about these people who live in the mountains near your camp. I will not lie to you’. A traitorous Greek, Ephialtes, will betray his country by telling the Persians of another pass around the mountains. Likewise, the turncoat local Edomites and Moabites will advise the Assyrians of a strategy better than the one that they had been intending. Conclusion The so-called Battle of Thermopylae never happened. No band of a mere 300 ever held the line against a massive Persian army. The classical Xerxes is a complete fiction. “Thermopylae: the Battle that changed the word”, in fact “changed” nothing. Now, the Battle of the Valley of Salem at “Bethulia” (Shechem), on the other hand, changed a heck of a lot. For (Judith 16:25): “As long as Judith lived, and for many years after her death, no one dared to threaten the people of Israel”. Also a Seleucid and more battles of Thermopylae “Thermopylae is a mountain pass near the sea in northern Greece which was the site of several battles in antiquity, the most famous being that between Persians and Greeks in August 480 BCE”. Mark Cartwright The OTHER (supposed) Battles of Thermopylae: https://steemit.com/history/@iaberius/the-other-battles-of-thermopylae are given here as follows: • 353 BC Battle of the Thermopylae. It took place during the Third Sacred War. Phocis and Thebes clashed over Delphi's control. The Phocians made heroic resistance in the Thermopylae against the ally of the Thebanians, King Philip II of Macedonia, father of Alexander the Great. • 279 BC Battle of Thermopylae. An alliance of the Greeks (Beotians, Phocians, Etholians, Megarenses and Athenians) defended the passage against the invasion of the Breno's Celts. Breno tried to use the hidden path used by Persian army two thousand years earlier, but the Greeks were prepared this time. A garrison defends the rough road, so Breno deviates to Delphi. In a second attempt, he succeeds in passing thanks the fog. However, the Greeks had been evacuated in the Athenian ships. Every one of the contingent goes to defend their city. • 191 BC Battle of Thermopylae. In this battle, the Seleucids clashed Romans, who came to Greece as allies of Macedonians. Marco Acilio Glabrio surrounded with his troops the army of King Antiochus III. They used the old mountain pass, and thus won the battle. • 267 AD Battle of Thermopylae. Several barbarian tribes assaulted the Roman Empire. First, they looted the Balkans, and then they extended their raid for Greece. One of these people, the Heruli, arrived at Thermopylae passage, where they tried to stop them without success. As a result, they devastated the entire Attica and the Peloponnese peninsula. Even the city of Sparta was plundered. Regarding the supposed Seleucid one of Antiochus (so-called) III, we read: http://www.historyofwar.org/articles/battles_thermopylae_191.html The battle of Thermopylae of 191 B.C. ended the Greek phase of the war between Rome and the Seleucid emperor Antiochus III. Antiochus had crossed into Greece from Asia Minor at the head of small army, hoping to find allies amongst the Greeks. He had been disappointed in this expectation – only the Aetolian League, who had invited him into Greece in the first place, offered him troops, and even then not as many as he had hoped. The Romans responded by sending an army to Greece, commanded by the consul M. Acilius Glabrio. He was more successful in finding allies, most notably gaining the support of Philip V of Macedonia, who only a few years before had been crushingly defeated by the Romans at Cynoscephalae (Second Macedonian War). Between them Philip and the Romans quickly recaptured all of Antiochus’ conquests in Thessaly. Antiochus decided to defend the pass of Thermopylae, where the greater Roman numbers would not be so telling. This position allowed him to remain in communication with Aetolia, and protected the crucial naval base at Chalcis. Antiochus defended the pass himself, with his 10,500 men, posting his slingers on the heights above the pass and his phalanx behind strong earthworks. The Aetolians were given the task of guarding his left flank, leaving 2,000 men at Heraclea in Trachis and posting 2,000 men in the forts that guarded the Asopus gorge and the mountain tracks that the Persians had used. Unfortunately for Antiochus the Romans had read the history books. They may have had as many as 40,000 men, and so on the night before the Roman attack they could afford to send 2,000 men around his western flank. On the day of the battle the Romans began with a frontal assault on his position. The first attack failed under a hail of missile weapons from the heights, and even when a second attack broke through the first Seleucid line, they were held off by Antiochus’ dug-in phalanx. The turning point of the battle came when the Roman flanking force appeared behind Antiochus’ position, and defeated the Aetolian troops guarding the col of Callidromus. The Seleucid army in the pass broke and fled, suffering heavy losses in the retreat. Antiochus was only able to rally 500 men at Elatea. He then retreated to Chalcis, before setting sail for Ephesus and Asia Minor. The war in Greece continued across the summer of 191, and saw Philip V recover some of the areas he had lost to the Aetolians after the Second Macedonian War. The Aetolians were then given permission to appear to the Senate, effectively suing for peace. At the same time the Romans turned their attention to an invasion of Asia Minor, winning a major naval battle at Corycus before winter ended the campaign of 191. ….

Scrutinising the C7th AD for its conundrums and anachronisms

by Damien F. Mackey Introduction So far, my only other article in this series has been this one (on the C15th AD): Bible-themed people and events permeate what we call [the] C15th AD (3) Bible-themed people and events permeate what we call C15th AD Here now, in this new article, we flip all the way back to what the text books, and historians generally, call the C7th (AD). Someone (cryptastic) has already written a handy summary of this era, at: https://steemit.com/history/@cryptastic/our-world-in-the-7th-century-a-d It is entitled: Our World in the 7th Century A.D. I shall be drawing from parts of this article (I would not necessarily accept population figures estimated), with my own comments added: Sometimes this question will randomly pop in my head, "What are other people around the world doing right this second?"; it's an interesting thing to think about. It occurred to me that was an interesting idea to apply to history. For example, while the Sui Dynasty was collapsing in China, what was going on in Canada? While the Mayans were performing human sacrifices, who were the Vikings raiding? When Braveheart was getting beheaded was Kublai Khan wiping his butt? These are burning questions that need answering. So basically I thought it would be interesting to choose a specific time period and look at what was going on globally. I'm currently studying early medieval China so I thought I'd pick the 7th century, 600-700 A.D. I'll organize this by region, listing interesting facts about the people or culture. It's interesting the variance in detail of historical records by location. Areas close to where human civilization began: Europe, middle east, central asia, you have documented historical records, while in America and Africa you have to rely mostly on artifacts and geological data to determine the cultures and timelines. China • The Tang Dynasty was started by Gaozu after the Sui collapsed (blowing all their cash on failed military exploits). Success of the Tang was mainly due to Emporer Taizhong, son of Gaosu, regarded by most as the greatest dynastic ruler in Chinese history. He did this by basically just being a rational dude. • Cultural achievements: Largest civilization in the world, first printed book, golden age of poetry, advanced criminal code, opera, porcelain, metalwork, clockwork. This is way above most other cultures at the time and for hundreds of years. • Population was about 50 million people. "Fun" fact - it would have been a lot more, but it was cut in half by the wars of the Three Kingdoms period a couple hundred years before. • Buddhism was made the state religion for the first time. • Chang An, currently known as Xian, was the largest city in the world with a population of 500k - 1 million. My comments: The Chinese, people of Sin (Sinites), hailed from a cursed ancestor, Canaan (cf. Genesis 9:24-27; 10:17). Considering the distance of China from the Middle East, where humanity began, the Chinese civilisation would have been much younger than, say, the Syro-Palestinians, Egyptians and Mesopotamians – though it, in its isolation, developed more slowly (e.g. its primitive logographic writing form), no alphabet. Much of what the Chinese are supposed to have invented, “way above most other cultures at the time and for hundreds of years”, would already have been known in the earlier civilisations. “Metalwork” was already practised before the Great Noachian Flood (Genesis 4:22). Unsurprisingly, the Chinese carried into their mythology some of early Genesis, including the Flood. On this, see e.g. my article: Ancient Chinese History and the Book of Genesis (4) Ancient Chinese History and the Book of Genesis Just as the later Greeks were given credit for discoveries that already, long before, had been made by the Egyptians: https://www.academia.edu/3660164/Solomon_and_Sheba …. Much has been attributed to the Greeks that did not belong to them - e.g. Breasted … made the point that Hatshep¬sut's marvellous temple structure was a witness to the fact that the Egyptians had developed architectural styles for which the later Greeks would be credited as originators. …. and by the Assyrians, e.g. the water screw pump: Beware of Greeks boasting inventions https://www.academia.edu/123266859/Beware_of_Greeks_boasting_inventions So what if the Chinese discovered pasta – a really big “if”, I would think? Buddha is but a fictitious non-historical composite, based primarily on Moses: Buddha partly based on Moses (4) Buddha partly based on Moses Today, a more fertile ground for critics may be ancient China, which, like Egypt once again, has known many dynasties. Biblical lecturer John D. Morris (Institute for Creation Research) tells of his having been the recipient of such a query from a scholar about the Chinese: http://www.icr.org/article/how-can-chinese-dynasties-extend-back-many-thousan/ I was lecturing on the Biblical and scientific evidence for recent creation to a university audience in Hong Kong, China, when a scholar raised the objection: “The Chinese have a documented history going back many thousands of years, much earlier than your dates for creation and the Flood. We have known dynasties and named rulers. The Bible must be wrong”. Critics have said the very same thing about the Egyptian and other ancient histories, presuming them to be right, hence the Bible must be wrong. The fact is that, when exposed to the torch of scrutiny, they are found to be, not right. What about China? China’s Documented Dynasties According to Morris, reliably documented Chinese history does not even precede 2000 BC: The solution lies in an examination of the earliest Chinese dynasties. Actually, precisely documented dynasties go back only to about 2000 B.C. The first true dynasty was founded about 4000 years ago by a leader remembered for having "sweetened the waters," making the land habitable after wide-spread flooding. The ten listed dynasties before that, however, were of a different sort, with very long lives and questionable details attributed to them. …. This sounds suspiciously Noachic and reminds one of the great Genesis Flood. North America-600-700 A.D. • The eastern United States was in the Later Woodland Period of Hopewell culture. These were hunter-gatherers on the verge of developed farming. There were small groups of hunter gatherers roaming around most of what is now the USA and Canada. • Cultural achievements and characteristics during this period: bow and arrow, burial mounds, sport, tempered pottery with decoration, wigwams and longhouses. No written history. • Population about 4 million (less than the population of modern San Francisco) …. My comment: I know next to nothing about early North America. But this puzzles me, the Fernando de Soto expedition and its failure to mention bisons - although it is supposed to pertain to the C16th AD, rather than to the C7th AD: AI Overview De Soto's expedition traveled through Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Arkansas, among other areas. These regions are within the historical range of the bison …. Absence of Bison in Records: Historical accounts of De Soto's expedition do not mention bison, despite detailed descriptions of the flora and fauna encountered. …. Though I am dealing here with the C7th, not C16th AD, the following article might help to account for Spanish Conquistador anomalies in the C16th AD: Alexander the Great and Hernán Cortés https://www.academia.edu/62585521/Alexander_the_Great_and_Hern%C3%A1n_Cort%C3%A9s Europe-600-700 A.D. A lot to cover here so I'll try to keep it as simple as possible. • Population about 20 million (population of modern New York or Shanghai) • Byzantine Empire: This is what was left of the Roman Empire after Italy was overrun by the Ostrogoths, who had been supplanted by the Lombards in Italy by the 7th century. It consisted of parts of Greece, Turkey, Bulgaria, Egypt, and a smidge of Italy. Heraclius, emporer [sic] at the time, and his dynasty were Armenian in ancestry. It was an advanced culture, with art, literature, and Roman technology, but like any at the time, still brutal, they were mainly at war with the Persians. The emperor at the time, Heraclius had many political opponents blinded, castrated, or subject to nose, hand, or leg amputations. Including his son, who tried to overthrow him, but in the end his rebellion didn't have a leg to stand on. My comment: Let’s stop right here with the emperor Heraclius, the most confused attempt at an historical character of whom I have ever read. I have just written this on him in my article: James D. Tabor claims the Shroud of Turin to be an early C14th medieval relic (3) James D. Tabor claims the Shroud of Turin to be an early C14th medieval relic …. Now, here is our ‘miraculous’ Heraclius. What a treat! But what a joke!: A composite character to end all composites Heraclius seems to have one foot in Davidic Israel, one in the old Roman Republic, and, whatever feet may be left (because this definitely cannot be right), in the Christian era. What a mix of a man is this emperor Heraclius! What a conundrum! What a puzzle! I feel sorry for Walter Emil Kaegi, who has valiantly attempted to write a biography of him: Heraclius, Emperor of Byzantium. The accomplishment of this scholarly exercise I believe to be a complete impossibility. And I could simply base this view on what I read from Kaegi’s book itself (pp. 12 and 13): The story of Heraclius, as depicted in several literary historical traditions, is almost Herodotean in his experience of fickle fortune's wheel of triumph and tragedy, of ignorance or excessive pride, error, and disaster. My comment: To classify the story of Heraclius as “Herodotean” may be appropriate. Herodotus, ostensibly “the Father of History” (according to Cicero), has also been called “the Father of Lies” by critics who claim that his ‘histories’ are little more than tall tales. Heraclius, as we now read, is spread ‘all over the place’ (my description): At one level his name is associated with two categories of classical nomenclature: (1) ancient classical offices such as the consulship, as well as (2) many of the most exciting heroes, places, precedents, and objects of classical, ancient Near Eastern, and Biblical antiquity: Carthage, Nineveh, Jerusalem, the vicinity of Alexander the Great's triumph over the Persians at Gaugamela, Noah's Ark, the Golden Gate in Jerusalem, Arbela, the fragments of the True Cross, Damascus, Antioch, perhaps even ancient Armenia's Tigra-nocerta, and of course, Constantinople. My comment: According to a late source (conventionally 600 years after Heraclius): “The historian Elmacin recorded in the 13th Century that in the 7th Century the Byzantine Emperor Heraclius had climbed Jabal Judi in order to see the place where the Ark had landed”. http://bibleprobe.com/noahark-timeline.htm Biblically, Heraclius has been compared with such luminaries as Noah, Moses, David, Solomon, Daniel, and even with Jesus Christ. And no wonder in the case of David! For we read in Steven H. Wander’s article for JSTOR, “The Cyprus Plates and the “Chronicle” of Fredegar” (pp. 345-346): https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/1291381.pdf …. there is one episode from the military career of Heraclius that bears a striking similarity to the story of David and Goliath. Byzantine chroniclers record that during his campaign against the Emperor Chosroes in 627, Heraclius fought the Persian general Razatis in single combat, beheading his opponent like the Israelite hero. …. George of Pisidia, the court poet, may have even connected this contemporary event with the life of David. In his epic panegyrics on Heraclius' Persian wars, he compared the Emperor to such Old Testament figures as Noah, Moses, and Daniel; unfortunately the verses of his Heraclias that, in all likelihood, dealt in detail with the combat are lost. …. [End of quote] That fateful year 627 AD … the year … of the supposed Battle of Nineveh said to have been fought and won by Heraclius! [Nineveh disappeared in c. 612 BC] According to Shaun Tougher, The Reign of Leo VI (886-912): Politics and People: “Heraclius … appears to have been intent on establishing himself as a new David …”. • Spain at the time was ruled by the Visigoths, germanic people. Interestingly, the Spanish language didn't exist there until the 10th century. Conquering muslims took Spain from the Visigoths the following century. There is virtually no trace of the Visigoth culture in modern Spain, besides the weird kids in school that wear black eye liner. They were pagans, not christians, and one interesting thing that remains of the Visigoth culture in modern Spain is some of their law code giving women property rights. • The UK was split into many different kingdoms and had a population between 1-2 million. The UK was a mess since the Romans left the 5th century. The Germanic Angles and Saxons invaded and wiped out a lot of people, in fact the population during Roman occupation, before the chaos, was over 2 million. During 7th century, the area was largely converted to Christianity and became split into the Anglo Saxon regions of Northumbria, Mercia, Anglia, then the Picts in Scotland. • Irish history wasn't documented until the beginning of the Christian period in the 6th century. There wasn't much outside interaction until the Vikings invaded and conquered a hundred years later. It was all Gaelic at the time with a clan/chieftain system. The Gaelic history was orally preserved until the introduction of literature in the 6th century by the Christian Missionaries. • The vikings weren't around yet, Scandinavian people at the time were just clans that apparently really liked cold weather. It was the next century in which they learned to build boats and they discovered they also really liked killing and stealing. • France and much of Western Europe was ruled by the Franks; Germanic people who are seen as the forebears of most Europeans, French, Germans, Dutch, Austrians. During the 7th century, the Frankish Realm was divided into a handful of Kingdoms like Aquitaine and Ron Burgundy. Chlothar II reunited them under his rule. Most spoke variants of German and Dutch. Modern French started later in a small area of what is now Northern France and Belgium, and evolved from the previous mix of Roman and the local people's colloquial dialect at the time. • Eastern Europe, the Baltics, Russia, were at the time populated with the Slavs, Bulgurs, and Avars. They preceded the Rus peoples that became Russian, Poland, Ukraine, etc. The Slavs were pagan tribes, the Avars were horse raiders from the southeast, that basically were like the Vikings of the area. Not very nice with all their raping and pillaging. The slavs through interaction became horsemen as well. The Avars origins are not known for sure. What is known is that besides raiding for themselves, they acted as mercenaries for the Byzantine Empire, until they turned on them as well. Guess who stopped their shenanigans? The French! Who would've thought. Although really the French were mostly German at the time. We'll give it to them since they were all called "Franks". Got all that? My comment: Now, switching to the Avars, I have written this article, based on an idea of Gyula Tóth: Avaric advancement coincides with the Magyar advancement? (3) Avaric advancement coincides with the Magyar advancement? Therein I wrote: I shall include this other section from Tóth’s article, as it includes Heraclius and Constantine III or Constantine VII? Illig in his book takes account of the [eerie] resemblance between events of the 5th and the 10th century as well. "The (Byzantine) empire is weakened militarily by the advancements of the Avars around the year 600 to the Balkan peninsula." - he writes. Let's not forget: with the correction of 300 years the Avaric advancement coincides with the Magyar advancement! For the Byzantine Empire had to face a strong enemy from the north in the beginning of the nine hundreds, [namely] the Magyars, the suspicion arises that the whole Avaric era is [none] other [than] the duplicate of the Magyar Ingression backdated. Illig takes reference on Manfred Zeller, who in his works about the peoples of steppe shows that: "the number of the horse-archer peoples' in the first millennium doubles, filling the empty centuries!" Therefore the Avars are just a duplicate! A duplicate created beside the Hun-Magyar nations with one purpose, to fill in the empty centuries. The archaeological artifacts denoted as Avaric could easily be that of the Huns of Atilla's. For now let's return to the Byzantine Empire: in 602 under the name of Phocas, a fearsome and untalented emperor sits on the throne by usurpation. At this time, the king of the Persians, Khosrau II, taking advantage of the situation makes an attack on Byzantine seemingly to avenge the murdered emperor. In 610 Heraclius puts an end to the terror reign of Phocas, but the Persian advancements continue: they take over Eastern Anatolia, Mesopotamia, Syria, Palestina, Egypt and on the Northern shores of Africa they reach till Tripoli. The occupation of Jerusalem and the taking of the True Cross happened in 614 may 22nd after a three [week] siege. An interesting thing about Heraclius is that he had a co-emperor. This is his own son who is already crowned in 613 at the age of two. Being at the side of his father with no contribution in decision making. When he finally got to the throne he only ruled for a mere four months. This being none other then Constantine III, who is mentioned in the Chronicon Pictum about the time of the Magyar Ingression: "... one hundred and four years after the death of the Magyar king Atilla, in the times of Emperor Constantine the III. and Pope Zachary - as can be found written in the chronicles of the Romans - the Magyars rode out for the second time from Scythia..." It is very interesting that the Chronicon Pictum's author sets the emperor from the time of the Magyar Ingression as an emperor who lived in the six hundreds! As we know according to Illig, the start of the phantom segment in our chronology takes place from 614, shortly after the True Cross is taken away. In this time Constantine III is already crowned, but only of three years of age. The time when he gains power to reign falls within the phantom segment. If Illig is right, then the character of Constantine III has to appear in some form in the 10th century as well. And as by magic, in the 10th century we also have a Constantine! This time not the III but the VII! Namingly Constantine VII Porphyrogennetos (the Purpleborn), who probably was one of the mastermind behind the fabrication of our chronology. After this Illig analyzed Constantine's life story. The story of the 10th century takes its beginning where Emperor Leo VI the Wise within four years becomes a widower three times, then finally Zoe Zaoutzaina gives birth to a son but illegitimate. When Leo crowns this boy as co-emperor, he dies within a year, in 912. (One should keep in mind that according to Illig in the year 911 the history starts anew. So in 912 the crowning of the illegitimate son belong to the real events of the time line.) But this boy has no saying in the state's matter until the age of 24. In this perspective bares resemblance with Constantine III, who also was crowned as coemperor at a young age and only could take the state's power into his hands much later on. So who do you think was the illegitimate son of Emperor Leo from the 10th century? Well, none other then Constantine VII Porphyrogennetos! The similarities are too remarkable between the life of Constantine III from the 7th century and that of Constantine VII from the 10th century. Worthy of note is the matter of the regaining of the True Cross from the hands of the Persians. It is not by mistake that Constantine VII has put it on the account of Heraclius, by doing this he did nothing else but paying homage to his own father's memory. For Heraclius in first of all not only being the father of Constantine III from the 7th century, he was also the father of Constantine VII of the 10th century! On top of all Constantine VII Porphyrogennetos arranges the beginning of the real history in a way that would start with his own coronation! In similarities not only the characters of the two emperors show resemblance, but also the foreign policies of the Byzantine Empire of the 7th and 10th century. As we've seen, in the 7th century the empire was troubled from the north by the Avaric advancements, meanwhile, in the southeast by that of the Persians. In the 10th century events repeat with different characters: in the north the Magyars trouble the empire, while in the southeast the Arabic expansion does the same. At this point one pauses for a brief moment and asks himself: isn't it possible that the Avars of the 7th century are no more [than] the Magyars of the 10th century? And the Arabic expansion of the 10th century is likely to be the Persian expansion of the 7th century? So, if the Byzantine Empire was troubled in the 7th century by Persians and Avars, in the 10th century these become Arabs and Magyars! My comment: And, regarding the supposed C11th AD Muslim conquests, see my article: Myth of C11th AD Arab Invasion (3) Myth of C11th AD Arab Invasion South America and Mexico-600-700 A.D. • Population - 4 million in Mexico, 3 million in South America. • 7th Century was the peak of Mayan Society. Mayans, on the Yucatan Penninsula, had an advanced written language, not just symbols(the only group in the Americas of this time period that did), art, mathematics, and astronomical system. Of course, they also liked war and they performed human sacrifices by cutting the still beating heart out of victims, as well as by torture and decapitation. So you take the good with the bad. • In South America there were the Wari and Tiwanaku Cultures, which were antecedents to the Incan Empire(The Incan Empire peaked in the 15th century). The Tiwanaku used the resources of Lake Titikaka, fish, birds, plants. They herded llama and Alpaca and also ate potatoes, quinoa, beans, and corn. • Note- All around North and South America, besides the specific sites mentioned, there were small groups of hunter gatherers for which there is very little historical data, but they also contributed to the population numbers mentioned above. The big cities of the Mayans, Tiwanaku, and Wari typically had no more than 100,000 residents. My comments: Again, see my article (above) on Hernán Cortés. The Incas, Mayans and Aztecs were all BC peoples. The Spanish led by Hernán Cortés, had he existed, would have had about as much chance of encountering Aztec multitudes in the C16th AD as Napoleon Bonaparte would have had being faced by an Egyptian army led by Pharaoh Ramses II when Napoleon rode up to the Giza Pyramids in c. 1800 AD. India-600-700 A.D • India at the time had the world's largest economy, 1/3-1/4 of the world's wealth. • Population over 50 million, more than Tang China or anywhere else at the time. However, the population of Tang China was the largest population under one ruling empire. • From this period South India started a shift from smaller kingdoms to larger empires, like the Chalukya, Pallavas, and Penyas. This brought advancements in government administration, overseas trade, and architecture. It was a golden age of South India. • Temples of Hinduism to gods like Vishnu were excavated sandstone, essentially sculpted from stone already at that location. • Sanskrit, the oldest Indo-aryan language was spoken mostly in the North, while Tamil was spoken mostly in the South. Both are thousands of years old written languages, predating our modern systems. Mongolia and Siberia-600-700 A.D • Between the vast Mongolian step plains and Siberia's frozen tundra, the step tribes formed from nomadic east and central asians, as well as some eastern europeans. From 1st millennia B.C. through the 15th century were a dominant force of mostly nomadic tribes of horse warriors occasionally uniting to wreak havoc on the surrounding peoples. • By the 7th century, many tribes had coalesced and the gokturk culture came to dominate the step plains north of China, reaching through Russia, eastern Europe, and towards Iran. • They were raiders and mercenaries, often used by Chinese militaries and many times the decisive factor for victory. They were, however, completely unreliable and would often rape and pillage the cities that they were supposed to be fighting for. • Over the millennia they had blended with the Chinese to a large degree. Interestingly, when looking at the whole of ancient history, it was the step tribes that were generally victorious over Imperial China. Chinese military was not successful using traditional warfare in the harsh environment of the north against the more mobile calvaries of horse warriors. The step tribes like the gokturks never tried to control much of China, however, with the exception of some Northern kingdoms, and of course the Mongol Empire which lasted a hundred years or so around the 13th century(the time of Ghengis Khan). • Even young girls were trained with horse and bow as children. • Ruling class members often took Chinese names and spent time in Chinese capitals. Chinese would send women to them for marriage alliances so they would stop raiding Northern Chinese towns. Africa-600-700 A.D • Population was about 15 million. • Languages included Nilo-Sara of Nubia and West Africa, Coptic/ancient Egyptian in Egypt(not like modern Egyptian/Arabic), and Bantu(antecedent of Zulu) in the South. • In the north people were skilled with copper, bronze, and iron. Jewelry, pottery, coins, eating utensils, etc. • Islam started to reach Eastern and Northern Africa during the 7th century as the Muslim Empire started to invade and conquer surrounding areas. • The Arabs also began the slave trade in 7th century, transporting across the Red Sea, Indian Ocean, and Sahara Desert. • The southern Bantu peoples were iron-using agriculturists and herdsmen at the time, mostly unaffected by the chaotic goings on of the North. Middle East-600-700 A.D • Languages spoken at the time were Arameic [sic] and Greek (language of Byzantine Empire). Arabic was not spoken until the 8th century. • The 7th century was huge for the middle east, it was a time of unification and expansionism. Muhammad the prophet of Islam appeared and unified the Arabian Peninsula by 632. Unified under Islam, this paved the way for the Umayyad Caliphate to form after Muhammad and conquer Iran, central asia to the borders of China, Northern Africa, and even Spain by mid 8th century. • The Muslims were mainly able to conquer due to their unification under Islam and the weakness of the surrounding empires, the Byzantine and Persian, after they had been warring against each other for many years. It all disintegrated by the end of the 8th century though. • Interestingly, within the Muslim Empire, non-muslims were free to practice their own religion, as long as they acknowledged their second class citizenship. My comment: The influence of Aramaïc may have been “overrated”: https://www.biblicalcyclopedia.com/A/aramaean-language.html “According to historical records which trace the migrations of the Syro-Arabians from the east to the south-west, and also according to the comparatively ruder form of the Aramaic language itself, we might suppose that it represents, even in the state' in which we have it, some image of that aboriginal type which the Hebrews and Arabians, under more favorable social and climatical influences, subsequently developed into fullness of sound and structure. But it is difficult for us now to discern the particular vestiges of this archaic form; for, not only did the Aramaic not work out its own development of the original elements common to the whole Syro-Arabian sisterhood of languages, but it was pre-eminently exposed, both by neighborhood and by conquest, to harsh collision with languages of an utterly different family. Moreover, it is the only one of the three great Syro-Arabian branches which has no fruits of a purely national literature to boast of. We possess no monument whatever of its own genius; not any work which may be considered the product of the political and religious culture of the nation, and characteristic of it — as is so emphatically the case both with the Hebrews and the Arabs. The first time we see the language it is used by Jews as the vehicle of Jewish thought; and although, when we next meet it, it is employed by native authors, yet they write under the literary impulses of Christianity, and under the Greek influence on thought and language which necessarily accompanied that religion. These two modifications, which constitute and define the so-called Chaldee and Syriac dialects, are the only forms in which the normal and standard Aramaic has been preserved to us. It is evident, from these circumstances, that up to a certain period the Aramaic language has no other history than that of its relations to Hebrew. The earliest notice we have of its separate existence is in Ge 31:47, where Laban, in giving his own name to the memorial heap, employs words which are genuine Aramaic both in form and use. The next instance is in 2Ki 18:26, where it appears that the educated Jews understood Aramaic, but that the common people did not. A striking illustration of its prevalence is found in the circumstance that it is employed as the language of official communication in the edict addressed by the Persian court to its subjects in Palestine (Ezr 4:17). The later relations of Aramaic to Hebrew consist entirely of gradual encroachments on the part of the former. The Hebrew language was indeed always exposed, particularly in the north of Palestine, to Aramaic influences; whence the Aramaisms of the book of Judges and of some others are derived. It also had always a closer conjunction, both by origin and by intercourse, with Aramaic than with Arabic. But in later times great political events secured to Aramaic the complete ascendency; for, on the one hand, after the deportation of the ten tribes, the repeopling their country with colonists chiefly of Syrian origin generated a mixed Aramaic and Hebrew dialect (the Samaritan) in central Palestine; and on the other the exile of the remaining two tribes exposed them to a considerable, although generally overrated, Aramaic influence in Babylon, and their restoration, by placing them in contact with the Samaritans, tended still further to dispossess them of their vernacular Hebrew”. Japan-600-700 A.D • During the Asuka period of medieval Japan. Population was about 4 million. • Buddhism first entered Japan during this period. • Japan experienced a military defeat by Tang China joined by Scilla (early Korean Kingdom). This was well before Japan's Samurai strong military period, and this loss inspired Japan to start reformations of their military. • Japan adopted Tang China style government administration during this period. My comment: Japan may have borrowed from an ancient Hebrew tradition: Japanese ‘omikoshi’ like Ark of Covenant (3) Japanese 'omikoshi' like Ark of Covenant Problems with Islamic ‘History’ In some cases, Islam and its scholars have shown a complete disregard for historical perspective. I had cause to discuss this in my review of Islamic scholar Ahmed Osman’s book, Out of Egypt. The Roots of Christianity Revealed, in: Osman’s ‘Osmosis’ of Moses (4) Osman's 'Osmosis' of Moses. Part One: The Chosen People | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu (4) Osman's 'Osmosis' of Moses. Part Two: Christ The King | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu his books being a diabolical historical mish-mash in which the author, Osman, sadly attempts to herd a millennium or more of history into the single Eighteenth Dynasty of ancient Egypt. But getting right to the heart of the situation, the historical problems pertaining to the Prophet Mohammed himself are legendary. My own contribution, amongst many, to this subject, is, for example: Biography of the Prophet Mohammed (Muhammad) Seriously Mangles History (4) Biography of the Prophet Mohammed (Muhammad) Seriously Mangles History | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu Scholars have long pointed out the historical problems associated with the life of the Prophet Mohammed and the history of Islam, with some going even so far as to cast doubt upon Mohammed’s actual existence. Biblico-historical events, normally separated the one from the other by many centuries, are re-cast as contemporaneous in the Islamic texts. Muslim author, Ahmed Osman, has waxed so bold as to squeeze, into the one Egyptian dynasty, the Eighteenth, persons supposed to span more than one and a half millennia. Now, as I intend to demonstrate in this article, biblico-historical events that occurred during the neo-Assyrian era of the C8th BC, and then later on, in the Persian era, have found their way into the biography of Mohammed supposedly of the C7th AD. Added to all this confusion is the highly suspicious factor of a ‘second’ Nehemiah, sacrificing at the site of the Temple of Yahweh in Jerusalem during a ‘second’ Persian period, all contemporaneous with the Prophet of Islam himself. The whole scenario is most reminiscent of the time of the original (and, I believe, of the only) Nehemiah of Israel. And so I wrote in an article, now up-dated as: Two Supposed Nehemiahs: BC time and AD time https://www.academia.edu/12429764/Two_Supposed_Nehemiahs_BC_time_and_AD_time This … later Nehemiah “offers a sacrifice on the site of the Temple”, according to Étienne Couvert (La Vérité sur les Manuscripts de la Mer Morte, 2nd ed, Éditions de Chiré, p. 98. My translation). “He even seems to have attempted to restore the Jewish cult of sacrifice”, says Maxine Lenôtre (Mahomet Fondateur de L’Islam, Publications MC, p.111, quoting from S.W. Baron’s, Histoire d’Israël, T. III, p. 187. My translation), who then adds (quoting from the same source): “Without any doubt, a number of Jews saw in these events a repetition of the re-establishment of the Jewish State by Cyrus and Darius [C6th BC kings of ancient Persia] and behaved as the rulers of the city and of the country”. [End of quote] So, conceivably, the whole concept of a Persian (or Sassanian) empire at this time, with rulers named Chosroes, again reminiscent of the ancient Cyrus ‘the Great’, may need to be seriously questioned. Coins and Archaeology And how to “explain inscriptions on early Islamic coins – the ones that showed Muhammed meeting with a Persian emperor [Chosroes II] who supposedly died a century before”? http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/place-london/plain/A85654957 Emmet Scott, who asks “Were the Arab Conquests a Myth?”, also points out major anomalies relating to the coinage of this presumed period, and regarding the archaeology of Islam in general, though Scott does not go so far as to suggest that the Sassanian era duplicated the ancient Persian one: http://www.newenglishreview.org/custpage.cfm/frm/160197/sec_id/160197 Note the remark [in Encyclopdaedia Iranica]: “The Arab-Sasanian coinages are not imitations,” but were “designed and manufactured by the same people as the late Sasanian issues.” We note also that the date provided on these artefacts is written in Persian script, and it would appear that those who minted the coins, native Persians, did not understand Arabic. We hear that under the Arabs the mints were “evidently allowed to go on as before,” and that there are “a small number of coins indistinguishable from the drahms of the last emperor, Yazdegerd III, dated during his reign but after the Arab capture of the cities of issue. It was only when Yazdegerd died (A.D. 651) [in the time of the Ummayad Caliph Mu'awiya] that some mark of Arab authority was added to the coinage.” (Ibid.) Even more puzzling is the fact that the most common coins during the first decades of Islamic rule were those of Yazdegerd's predecessor Chosroes II, and many of these too bear the Arabic inscription (written however, as we saw, in the Syriac script) besm Allah. Now, it is just conceivable that invading Arabs might have issued slightly amended coins of the last Sassanian monarch, Yazdegerd III, but why continue to issue money in the name of a previous Sassanian king (Chosroes II), one who, supposedly, had died ten years earlier? This surely stretches credulity. The Persian-looking Islamic coins are of course believed to date from the time of Umar (d. 664), one of the “Rightly-guided Caliphs” who succeeded Muhammad and supposedly conquered what became the Islamic Empire. Yet it has to be stated that there is no direct archaeological evidence for the existence either of Umar or any of the other “Rightly-guided” Caliphs Abu Bakr, Uthman or Ali. Not a brick, coin, or artifact of any kind bears the name of these men. Archaeologically, their existence is as unattested as Muhammad himself. …. [End of quote] But surely what Scott alleges about these early Caliphs, that: “Not a brick, coin, or artifact of any kind bears the name of these men”, cannot be applied to Suleiman the Magnificent himself, evidence of whose building works in, say Jerusalem, are considered to abound and to be easily identifiable. A typical comment would be this: “Jerusalem’s current walls were built under the orders of Suleiman the Magnificent between the years 1537 and 1541. Some portions were built over the ancient walls from 2,000 years ago. The walls were built to prevent invasions from local tribes and to discourage another crusade by Christians from Europe”: http://www.generationword.com/jerusalem101/4-walls-today.html

New technology has unrolled the charred scrolls of Herculaneum

Researchers used AI to decipher ancient scrolls buried by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius. “Launched by Brent Seales and tech leaders like Nat Friedman and Daniel Gross, the Vesuvius Challenge offered $700,000 to teams decoding texts from unopened scrolls. The contest rewarded students for picking out Greek words like “porphyras,” meaning “purple,” marking the first words read since antiquity”. Carl Wyndham https://www.factinate.com/things/researchers-ai-read-ancient-scroll-vesuviu Jul 15THINGSCarl Wyndham The charred scrolls of Herculaneum, buried under the ash of the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD, have long mesmerized scholars with their mysteries. Discovered in the 1750s at the villa of Julius Caesar’s father-in-law, the scrolls were charred rolled-up lumps thought to be undecipherable. But a new breakthrough in artificial intelligence has unrolled the scrolls so we can see what’s written on them. Digitally Driven Unravelling Researchers used high-resolution X ray micro-CT scans and phase contrast tomography to create detailed 3D images of the scrolls. AI-powered segmentation algorithms then virtually separate the page layers, literally unfolding the scroll in digital space. It’s a bit hard to understand, but this digital unwrapping evidently preserves the fragile papyrus material while enabling people to read the text hidden inside. Herculaneum scrolls: A 20-year journey to read the unreadable, University of Kentucky, YouTube Factinate Video of the Day The Vesuvius Challenge Throws Down A Gauntlet Launched by Brent Seales and tech leaders like Nat Friedman and Daniel Gross, the Vesuvius Challenge offered $700,000 to teams decoding texts from unopened scrolls. The contest rewarded students for picking out Greek words like “porphyras,” meaning “purple,” marking the first words read since antiquity. First Passages Revealed: Disgust And Philosophy In February 2025, AI-aided translation revealed the Greek word for “disgust” (“διατροπή”) within PHerc. 172, preserved at Oxford’s Bodleian Library. Further work finally zeroed in on the scroll’s title: On Vices and Their Opposite Virtues by Philodemus. He was an Epicurean philosopher of the 1st century BC. This was the first confirmed author and title ever deciphered from a sealed papyrus. Reading Ancient Ink With Machine Learning AI models can detect carbon-based ink within volumetric scans by analyzing subtle phase shifts in X-rays, distinguishing ink from carbonized papyrus. Projects like EduceLab Scrolls use supervised learning to align CT scans with spectral images, as part of models that can "see" writing that is invisible to the human eye. Crowdsourcing Expertise And Continuity The Vesuvius Challenge was a funding pipeline for innovation but opened up the scrolls to global teams. Beyond early student successes, researchers from University of Würzburg and Oxford worked together to nail down the title and author of the scroll by using similar AI and imaging tech. From Words To Full Texts The early results have decoded scattered words and short passages, but the goal of the project is far more ambitious, and is intended to read entire scrolls from start to finish. For another Herculaneum scroll, Pherc Paris 4, teams have read around 5% of the text covering Epicurean themes of pleasure and food. The 2024 grand prize was determined to reach 90% text recovery, laying the groundwork for complete translations. Resurrecting History Using Technology Unlike earlier mechanical unrolling, like Padre Antonio Piaggio’s 18th-century silk-thread device, these modern methods are non-invasive. Using digital imaging and AI, researchers avoid damaging these irreplaceable artifacts. The method holds the promise of unlocking countless secrets of the past. A Breath Of Fresh Air For Classical Studies All of this use of machine learning, imaging, and collaborative competition is a major breakthrough in humanities research, and could turn out to be the biggest discovery of the 21st century. In deciphering these scrolls, researchers are adding massively to our understanding of ancient thought. Future projects could reveal lost works by Philodemus, Seneca, or even philosophical texts whose authors’ names we don’t know. A Huge Backlog With over 800 scrolls piled up waiting for analysis across Naples, Oxford, and elsewhere, the AI quest for the truth is only now taking its first bold steps. As the technology gets better, the integration of X rays, infrared imaging, and machine learning promise to bring more history-shattering revelations. The 24/7 digitization and open-access initiatives should keep scholars occupied for years to come. …. The deciphering of the Herculaneum scrolls shows how new technology can breathe life into a field of study stuck at a standstill. As researchers continue to reveal the secrets of these scrolls, the dusty halls of academia are going to be a much noisier and more exciting place!

Origins of Islam

by Damien F. Mackey With regard to my interest in the archaeology of Mecca, for example: A funny thing happened on the way to Mecca (2) A funny thing happened on the way to Mecca a Southern Evangelical Seminary Faculty Member has suggested to me: “Check out the Hidden Origins of Islam edited by Karl Heinz-Ohlig, as well as Crossroads to Islam by Yehuda Nevo. These books will get you started”. https://www.amazon.com.au/dp/1591026342?ref_=mr_referred_us_au_au Despite Muhammad's exalted place in Islam, even today there is still surpisingly [sic] little actually known about this shadowy figure and the origins of the Qur'an because of an astounding lack of verifiable biographical material. Furthermore, most of the existing biographical traditions that can be used to substantiate the life of Muhammad date to nearly two centuries after his death, a time when a powerful, expansive, and idealized empire had become synonymous with his name and vision - thus resulting in an exaggerated and often artificial characterization of the prophetic figure coupled with many questionable interpretations of the holy book of Islam. On the basis of datable and localizable artifacts from the seventh and eighth centuries of the Christian era, many of the historical developments, misconceptions, and fallacies of Islam can now be seen in a different light. Excavated coins that predate Islam and the old inscription in the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem utilize symbols used in a documented Syrian Arabic theology - a theology with Christian roots. Interpreting traditional contexts of historical evidence and rereading passages of the Qur'an, the researchers in this thought-provoking volume unveil a surprising - and highly unconventional - picture of the very foundations of Islamic religious history. [End of quote] My own view is that Mohammed was not a real C7th AD historical figure, at all, but a non-historical fictitious composite. See e.g. my article: Biography of the Prophet Mohammed (Muhammad) Seriously Mangles History https://www.academia.edu/114699777/Biography_of_the_Prophet_Mohammed_Muhammad_Seriously_Mangles_History https://www.google.com/search?num=10&sca_esv=160e23f215d5943b&rlz=1C1RXQR_en-gbAU979AU979&sxsrf=AE3TifO-rBqgpX_cHXyLZS6DnO4Y7Y4IQg:1752095116912&q=Crossroads+to+Islam+by+Yehuda+Nevo.&source=lnms&fbs=AIIjpHwdlVWI4oi2g38E8_BbusNmV4N_PDMDZa8kD6jzfAqHH_e2wpq3bNF0nim2pM6iwiLn2tgcBi6KhLdjbQw7R8Fi7jULpZo01m0UyVnlrVcDlnjKUd6VUEtcUxkKOkJ_ARTEKORVHwkJf2FZXaIYJy120b1nNDaJp1BaVVMduHDgLVzhvfg7TgHnUp7kEhpqmBAphim3QbBp1v-3jrurwJCyytP4-eHZVyf_pirXqJbxa0xLv_k&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjdrbn41rCOAxUcxTgGHZFFFgEQ0pQJKAB6BAgPEAE&biw=1920&bih=945&dpr=1 Crossroads to Islam: The Origins of the Arab Religion and the Arab State is a book by archaeologist Yehuda D. Nevo and researcher Judith Koren. The book presents a radical theory of the origins and development of the Islamic state and religion based on archeological, epigraphical and historiographical research.

Merging a Kassite and a Hittite king

by Damien F. Mackey Historical parallel – which I regard as being just the one historical event – we have Tukulti-ninurta attacking Babylon and removing its Kassite king, Kastiliash so-called IV, in chains to Assyria; and we have Sargon II attacking Carchemish and removing its Hittite king, Piyashili (Pisiri), in chains to Assyria. Tukulti-Ninurta I (c. 1243–1207 BC, conventional dating) was, in my scheme of things, the same neo-Assyrian king as Sargon II-Sennacherib: Tukulti-Ninurta I and Sargon II-Sennacherib (3) Tukulti-Ninurta I and Sargon II-Sennacherib And, again in my scheme of things, Babylon was the same as Carchemish. Now, in a recent article of mine on the subject: Capital importance that Sargon II attached to the city of Carchemish (4) Capital importance that Sargon II attached to the city of Carchemish I drew an historical parallel between Tukulti-Ninurta’s defeat of the Kassite king, Kashtiliash, of Babylon, and Sargon II’s defeat of the Hittite king, Piyashili (Pisiri), of Carchemish (Karkemish, Karkamis). Here is the gist of it: UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS JOURNALS—In “A New Historical Inscription of Sargon II from Karkemish,” published in the Journal of Near Eastern Studies, Gianni Marchesi translates a recently discovered inscription of the Assyrian King Sargon II found at the ruins of the ancient city of Karkemish. The inscription, which dates to around 713 B.C., details Sargon’s conquest, occupation, and reorganization of Karkemish, including his rebuilding the city with ritual ceremonies usually reserved for royal palaces in capital cities. The text implies that Sargon may have been planning to make Karkemish a western capital of Assyria, from which he could administer and control his empire’s western territories. The cuneiform inscription was found on fragments from three different clay cylinders in 2015 as part of the Nicolò Marchetti-led Turco-Italian Archaeological Expedition at Karkemish. Now in ruins, the site is located on the Euphrates river on the border between present day Syria and Turkey. Marchesi analyzed and translated the total of thirty-eight lines of partially broken Akkadian text, using reference material, academic literature and other inscribed Assyrian artifacts as reference points for filling in the gaps. The lines of text ranged from two-thirds complete to much less, and no line of text was completely intact. “Even so, we can grasp much of the original text, which turns out to be very informative,” Marchesi writes. “In fact, unlike other Sargon cylinders, which contain relatively standard ‘summary’ inscriptions or annalistic accounts of the events of Sargon’s reign, the Karkemish Cylinder provides us with a completely new inscription, dealing almost exclusively with the newly conquered city on the Euphrates in a highly-elaborated, literary style.” In the inscription, Sargon tells of the “betrayal” of … [Pisiri], the Hittite King of Karkemish who exchanged hostile words about Assyria with its enemy, King Midas of Phrygia. Sargon invades Karkemish, deports Pisiri and his supporters, destroys his palace, seizes his riches as booty and incorporates Pisiri’s army into his own. He resettles the city with Assyrians. Mackey’s comment: A vital connection can be made between Carchemish and Babylon, I believe, if one first accepts my thesis that Sargon II (Sennacherib) was the same as Tukulti-Ninurta so-called I: Tukulti-Ninurta I folds well into Sargon II-Sennacherib (2) Tukulti-Ninurta I folds well into Sargon II-Sennacherib Tukulti-Ninurta had fought and defeated Kashtiliash so-called IV, king of Babylon. Kaštiliašu was captured, single-handed by Tukulti-Ninurta according to his account, who “trod with my feet upon his lordly neck as though it were a footstool”. And we have just read - what I would consider to be the parallel version to this - where Sargon II defeats and deports Pisiri[s], king of Carchemish. Previously, in my article: Borsippa may strengthen the case for Carchemish as mighty Babel-Babylon (2) Borsippa may strengthen the case for Carchemish as mighty Babel-Babylon I spelled out the striking parallels between the two scenarios:  Historical parallel – which I regard as being just the one historical event – we have Tukulti-ninurta attacking Babylon and removing its Kassite king, Kastiliash so-called IV, in chains to Assyria; and we have Sargon II attacking Carchemish and removing, its Hittite king, Piyashili (Pisiri), in chains to Assyria. Spelt out, Tukulti-ninurta/Sargon II attacks and takes the city of Babylon/ Carchemish and captures the Kassite/Hittite king, Kashtiliash/Piyasili, taking him in chains to Assyria.

Hebrew influences permeated the lore of the ancient pagans

by Damien F. Mackey “The name of Aqht, the son of Danel, returns as Qehat, the grandfather of Moses. The name of the locality Mrrt, where Aqht was killed, figures in the gentilic form Merarî as the brother of Qehat in the Levite genealogy. The name of P?t, the daughter of Danel and the devoted sister of Aqht, is met in the Moses story as Pû'ã, a midwife who saved the life of the new-born Moses”. Michael Astour Law and Government Moses The great Lawgiver in the Bible, and hence in Hebrew history, was Moses, substantially the author of the Torah (Law). But the history books tell us that the Torah was probably dependent upon the law code issued by the Babylonian king, Hammurabi (dated to the first half of the 18th BC). I shall discuss this further on. Also, the famous Spartan lawgiver, Lycurgus, seems to have been based upon Moses: Moses and Lycurgus (4) Moses and Lycurgus For Egyptian identifications of Moses, see e. g. my article: Realisation of who was the Egyptianised Moses (4) Realisation of who was the Egyptianised Moses The Egyptians may have corrupted the legend of the baby Moses in the bulrushes so that now it became the goddess Isis who drew the baby Horus from the Nile and had him suckled by Hathor (the goddess in the form of a cow – the Egyptian personification of wisdom). In the original story, of course, baby Moses was drawn from the water by an Egyptian princess, not a goddess, and was weaned by Moses’ own mother (Exodus 2:5-9). But could both the account of the rescue of the baby Moses in the Book of Exodus, and the Egyptian version of it, be actually based upon a Mesopotamian original, as the textbooks say; based upon the story of king Sargon of Akkad in Mesopotamia? Sargon tells, “in terms reminiscent of Moses, Krishna and other great men”, that [as quoted by G. Roux, Ancient Iraq, Penguin Books, 1964, p. 152]: .… My changeling mother conceived me, in secret she bore me. She set me in a basket of rushes, with bitumen she sealed my lid. She cast me into the river which rose not over me. The river bore me up and carried me to Akki, the drawer of water. Akki, the drawer of water, took me as his son and reared me …. Given that Sargon is conventionally dated to the C24th BC, and Moses about a millennium later, it would seem inevitable that the Hebrew version, and the Egyptian one, must be imitations of the Mesopotamian one. Such is what the ‘history’ books say, at least. The fact is, however, that the extant Sargon legend is very late (C7th BC); though thought to have been based upon an earlier Mesopotamian original. Dean Hickman has re-dated king Hammurabi of Babylon to the time of kings Solomon and David (mid-C10th BC), re-identifying Hammurabi’s older contemporary, Shamsi-Adad I, as king David’s Syrian foe, Hadadazer (2 Samuel 10:16) (“The Dating of Hammurabi”, Proceedings of the Third Seminar of Catastrophism and Ancient History, Uni. Of Toronto, 1985, ed. M. Luckerman, pp. 13-28). For more on this, see e. g. my articles: Hammurabi and Zimri-Lim as Contemporaries of Solomon (4) Hammurabi and Zimri-Lim as Contemporaries of Solomon and: (4) Hammurabi and Zimri-Lim as contemporaries of Solomon. Part Two (b): Zimri-Lim's Palace and the four rivers? According to this new scenario, Hammurabi could not possibly have influenced Moses. Greek and Levant 'Moses-like Myths' Michael Astour believes that Moses, a hero of the Hebrew scriptures, shares "some cognate features" with Danaos (or Danaus), hero of Greek legend. He gives his parallels as follows (Hellenosemitica, p. 99): Moses grows up at the court of the Egyptian king as a member of the royal family, and subsequently flees from Egypt after having slain an Egyptian - as Danaos, a member of the Egyptian ruling house, flees from the same country after the slaying of the Aigyptiads which he had arranged. The same number of generations separates Moses from Leah the "wild cow" and Danaos from the cow Io. Mackey’s Comment: The above parallel might even account for how the Greeks managed to confuse the land of Ionia (Io) with the land of Israel in the case of the earliest philosophers. Astour continues (pp. 99-100): Still more characteristic is that both Moses and Danaos find and create springs in a waterless region; the story of how Poseidon, on the request of the Danaide Amymona, struck out with his trident springs from the Lerna rock, particularly resembles Moses producing a spring from the rock by the stroke of his staff. A ‘cow’ features also in the legend of Cadmus, son of Agenor, king of Tyre upon the disappearance of his sister Europa, who was sent by his father together with his brothers Cilix and Phoenix to seek her with instructions not to return without her. Seeking the advice of the oracle at Delphi, Cadmus was told to settle at the point where a cow, which he would meet leaving the temple, would lie down. The cow led him to the site of Thebes (remember the two cities by that name). There he built the citadel of Cadmeia. Cadmus married Harmonia, the daughter of Ares, god of war, and Aphrodite and, according to the legend, was the founder of the House of Oedipus. Astour believes that "even more similar features" may be discovered if one links these accounts to the Ugaritic (Levantine-Canaanite) poem of Danel, which he had previously identified as "the prototype of the Danaos myth" (p. 100): The name of Aqht, the son of Danel, returns as Qehat, the grandfather of Moses. The name of the locality Mrrt, where Aqht was killed, figures in the gentilic form Merarî as the brother of Qehat in the Levite genealogy. The name of P?t, the daughter of Danel and the devoted sister of Aqht, is met in the Moses story as Pû'ã, a midwife who saved the life of the new-born Moses. The very name of Moses, in the feminine form Mšt, is, in the Ugaritic poem, the first half of Danel's wife's name, while the second half of her name, Dnty, corresponds to the name of Levi's sister Dinah. Michael Astour had already explained how the biblical story of the Rape of Dinah (Genesis 34) was "analogous to the myth of the bloody wedding of her namesakes, the Danaides". He continues on here with his fascinating Greco-Israelite parallels: Dân, the root of the names Dnel, Dnty (and also Dinah and Danaos), was the name of a tribe whose priests claimed to descend directly from Moses (Jud. 18:30); and compare the serpent emblem of the tribe of Dan with the serpent staff of Moses and the bronze serpent he erected. …Under the same name - Danaë - another Argive heroine of the Danaid stock is thrown into the sea in a chest with her new-born son - as Moses in his ark (tébã) - and lands on the serpent-island of Seriphos (Heb. šãrâph, applied i.a. to the bronze serpent made by Moses). Moses, like Danel, is a healer, a prophet, a miracle-worker - cf. Danel's staff (mt) which he extends while pronouncing curses against towns and localities, quite like Moses in Egypt; and especially, like Danel, he is a judge…. Roman 'Moses-like Myth' The Romans further corrupted the story of the infant Moses, following on probably from the Egyptians, Mesopotamians, Levantines and Greeks. I refer to the account of Romulus (originally Rhomus) and Remus, thought to have founded the city of Rome in 753 BC. Both the founders and the date are quite mythical. Did the Romans take an Egyptian name for Moses, such as Musare, and turn it into Rhomus and Remus (MUSA-RE = RE-MUS), with the formerly one child (Moses) now being doubled into two babies (twins)? According to this legend, the twins were put into a basket by some kind servants and floated in the Tiber River, from which they were eventually rescued by a she-wolf. Thus the Romans more pragmatically opted for a she-wolf as the suckler instead of a cow goddess, or a lion goddess, Sekhmet (the fierce alter ego of Hathor). The Romans may have taken yet another slice from the Pentateuch when they had the founder of the city of Rome, Romulus, involved in a fratricide (killing Remus); just as Cain, the founder of the world's first city, had killed his own brother, Abel (cf. Genesis 4:8 and 4:17). Mohammed: Arabian `Moses-like Myths' ... An Islamic lecturer, Ahmed Deedat ["What the Bible Says About Mohammed (Peace Be Upon Him) the Prophet of Islam" (www.islamworld.net/Muhammad.in.Bible.html)], told of an interview he once had with a dominee of the Dutch Reformed Church in Transvaal, van Heerden, on the question: "What does the Bible say about Muhummed?" Deedat had in mind the Holy Qur'an verse 46:10, according to which "a witness among the children of Israel bore witness of one like him…". This was, in turn, a reference to Deuteronomy 18:18's "I will raise them up a Prophet from among their brethren, like unto thee, and I will put my words in his mouth; and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command him." The Moslems, of course, interpret the "one like him [i.e. Moses]" as being Mohammed himself. Faced with the dominee's emphatic response that the Bible has "nothing" to say about Mohammed - and that the Deuteronomic prophecy ultimately pertained to Jesus Christ, as did "thousands" of other prophecies - Deedat set out to prove him wrong. On the deft apologetical ploy used here, see my article: Zakir Naik’s apologetical tactic meant to embarrass Christians (4) Zakir Naik's apologetical tactic meant to embarrass Christians For some of my own views on the Prophet Mohammed, see my article: Biography of the Prophet Mohammed (Muhammad) Seriously Mangles History (4) Biography of the Prophet Mohammed (Muhammad) Seriously Mangles History Some Conclusions regarding Mohammed (c. 570-632 AD, conventional dating) Whilst Mohammed supposedly lived much later than Moses, there nevertheless do seem to be Arabic borrowings of the Moses story itself (and even appropriations of certain very specific aspects of the life of Jesus, as we shall read later) in the legends about Mohammed, who especially resembles Moses in: (i) the latter's visit to Mount Horeb with its cave atop, its Burning Bush, and angel (Exodus 3:1-2), possibly equating to Mohammed's "Mountain of Light" (Jabal-an-Nur), and 'cave of research' (`Ghar-i-Hira'), and angel Gabriel; (ii) at the very same age of forty (Acts 7:23-29), and (iii) there receiving a divine revelation, leading to his (iv) becoming a prophet of God and a Lawgiver. Mohammed as a Lawgiver is (like the Spartan Lycurgus) a direct pinch, I believe, from the Hebrew Pentateuch, and also from the era of Jeremiah. Consider the following by M. O'Hair ("Mohammed", A text of American Atheist Radio Series program No. 65, first broadcast on August 25, 1969: www.atheists.org/Islam.Mohammed.html "Now the Kaaba or Holy Stone at Mecca was the scene of an annual pilgrimage, and during this pilgrimage in 621 Mohammed was able to get six persons from Medina to bind themselves to him. They did so by taking the following oath. Not consider anyone equal to Allah; Not to steal; Not to be unchaste; Not to kill their children; Not willfully to calumniate". This is simply the Mosaïc Decalogue, with the following Islamic addition: "To obey the prophet's orders in equitable matters. In return Mohammed assured these six novitiates of paradise. The place where these first vows were taken is now called the first Akaba". "The mission of Mohammed", perfectly reminiscent of that of Moses, and later of Nehemiah, was "to restore the worship of the One True God, the creator and sustainer of the universe, as taught by Prophet Ibrahim [Abraham] and all Prophets of God, and complete the laws of moral, ethical, legal, and social conduct and all other matters of significance for the humanity at large." The above-mentioned Burning Bush incident occurred whilst Moses (a) was living in exile (Exodus 2:15) (b) amongst the Midianite tribe of Jethro, near the Paran desert. (c) Moses had married Jethro's daughter, Zipporah (v. 21). Likewise Mohammed: (a) experienced exile; (b) to Medina, a name which may easily have become confused with the similar sounding, Midian, and (c) he had only the one wife at the time, Khadija. Also (d) Moses, like Mohammed, was terrified by what God had commanded of him, protesting that he was "slow of speech and slow of tongue" (Exodus 4:10). To which God replied: "Who gives speech to mortals? Who makes them mute or deaf, seeing or blind? Is it not I, the Lord? Now go, and I will be your mouth and teach you what you are to speak' (vv. 11-12). Now this episode, seemingly coupled with Moses’s call, has come distorted into the Koran as Mohammed's being terrified by what God was asking of him, protesting that he was not learned. To which God supposedly replied that he had 'created man from a clot of congealed blood, and had taught man the use of the pen, and that which he knew not, and that man does not speak ought of his own desire but by inspiration sent down to him'. Ironically, whilst Moses the writer complained about his lack of verbal eloquence, Mohammed, 'unlettered and unlearned', who therefore could not write, is supposed to have been told that God taught man to use the pen (?). But Mohammed apparently never learned to write, because he is considered only to have spoken God's utterances. Though his words, like those of Moses (who, however, did write, e.g. Exodus 34:27), were written down in various formats by his secretary, Zaid (roughly equating to the biblical Joshua, a writer, Joshua 8:32, or to Jeremiah’s scribe, Baruch). This is generally how the Koran is said to have arisen. But Mohammed also resembles Moses in his childhood (and Tobit also) in the fact that, after his infancy, he was raised by a foster-parent (Exodus 2:10). And there is the inevitable weaning legend (Zahoor, A. and Haq, Z., "Biography of Prophet Muhammad (pbuh)", http://cyberistan.org/islamic/muhammad.html 1998.): "All biographers state that the infant prophet sucked only one breast of his foster-mother, leaving the other for the sustenance of his foster-brother". There is even a kind of Islamic version of the Exodus. Compare the following account of the Qoreish persecution and subsequent pursuit of the fleeing Moslems with the persecution and later pursuit of the fleeing Israelites by Pharaoh (Exodus 1 and 4:5-7) [O’Hair, op. cit., ibid.]: When the persecution became unbearable for most Muslims, the Prophet advised them in the fifth year of his mission (615 CE) to emigrate to Abyssinia (modern Ethiopia) where Ashabah (Negus, a Christian) was the ruler. Eighty people, not counting the small children, emigrated in small groups to avoid detection. No sooner had they left the Arabian coastline [substitute Egyptian borders], the leaders of Quraish discovered their flight. They decided to not leave these Muslims in peace, and immediately sent two of their envoys to Negus to bring all of them back. The Koran of Islam is basically just the Arabic version of the Hebrew Bible with all of its same famous patriarchs and leading characters. That is apparent from what the Moslems themselves admit. For example [ibid.]: The Qur'an also mentions four previously revealed Scriptures: Suhoof (Pages) of Ibrahim (Abraham), Taurat ('Torah') as revealed to Prophet Moses, Zuboor ('Psalms') as revealed to Prophet David, and Injeel ('Evangel') as revealed to Prophet Jesus (pbuh). Islam requires belief in all prophets and revealed scriptures (original, non-corrupted) as part of the Articles of Faith. On this, see e.g. my article: Durie’s verdict on Prophet Mohammed (4) Durie's verdict on Prophet Mohammed Mohammed is now for Islam the last and greatest of the prophets. Thus, "in the Al-Israa, Gabriel (as) took the Prophet from the sacred Mosque near Ka'bah to the furthest (al-Aqsa) mosque in Jerusalem in a very short time in the latter part of a night. Here, Prophet Muhammad met with previous Prophets (Abraham, Moses, Jesus and others) and he led them in prayer" [ibid.]. Thus Mohammed supposedly led Jesus in prayer. The reputation of Ibn Ishaq (ca 704-767), a main authority on the life and times of the Prophet varied considerably among the early Moslem critics: some found him very sound, while others regarded him as a liar in relation to Hadith (Mohammed's sayings and deeds). His Sira is not extant in its original form, but is present in two recensions done in 833 and 814-15, and these texts vary from one another. Fourteen others have recorded his lectures, but their versions differ [ibid.]: It was the storytellers who created the tradition: the sound historical traditions to which they are supposed to have added their fables simply did not exist. . . . Nobody remembered anything to the contrary either. . . . There was no continuous transmission. Ibn Ishaq, al-Waqidi, and others were cut off from the past: like the modern scholar, they could not get behind their sources.... Finally, it has to be realized that the tradition as a whole, not just parts of it as some have thought, is tendentious, and that that tendentiousness arises from allegiance to Islam itself. Mohammed, a composite figure, seems to have likenesses even to pre-Mosaïc patriarchs, and to Jesus in the New Testament. Thus Mohammed, at Badr, successfully led a force of 300+ men (the number varies from 300-318) against an enemy far superior in number, as did Abraham (Genesis 14:14); and, like Jacob (Genesis 30, 31), he used a ruse to get a wife (in Jacob's case, wives). And like Jesus, the greatest of all God's prophets, Mohammed is said to have ascended into heaven from Jerusalem. Modern Myths about Moses From the above it can now be seen that it was not only the Greeks and Romans who have been guilty of appropriation into their own folklore of famous figures of Israel. Even the Moslems have done it and are still doing it. A modern-day Islamic author from Cairo, Ahmed Osman, has - in line with psychiatrist Sigmund Freud's view that Moses was actually an Egyptian, whose Yahwism was derived from pharaoh Akhnaton's supposed monotheism [Out of Egypt. The Roots of Christianity Revealed (Century, 1998)] - identified all the major biblical Israelites, from the patriarch Joseph to the Holy Family of Nazareth, as Eighteenth Dynasty Egyptian characters. Thus Joseph = Yuya; Moses = Akhnaton; David = Thutmose III; Solomon = Amenhotep III; Jesus = Tutankhamun; St. Joseph = Ay; Mary = Nefertiti. This is mass appropriation! Not to mention chronological madness! I was asked by Dr. Norman Simms of the University of Waikato (N.Z.) to write a critique of Osman's book, a copy of which he had posted to me. This was a rather easy task as the book leaves itself wide open to criticism. Anyway, the result of Dr. Simms' request was my article, "Osman's 'Osmosis' of Moses" article [The Glozel Newsletter, 5:1 (ns) 1999 (Hamilton, N.Z), pp. 1-17], in which I argued that, because Osman is using the faulty textbook history of Egypt, he is always obliged to give the chronological precedence to Egypt, when the influence has actually come from Israel over to Egypt. [This article, modified, can now be read at: Osman’s ‘Osmosis’ of Moses. Part One: The Chosen People (4) Osman's 'Osmosis' of Moses. Part One: The Chosen People and: Osman’s ‘Osmosis’ of Moses. Part II: Christ the King (4) Osman's 'Osmosis' of Moses. Part Two: Christ The King The way that Egyptian chronology is structured at present - thanks largely to Dr. Eduard Meyer's now approximately one century-old Ägyptische Chronologie (Philosophische und historische Abhandlungen der Königlich preussischen Akad. der Wissenschaften, Berlin, Akad. der Wiss., 1904).) could easily give rise to Osman's precedence in favour of Egypt view (though this is no excuse for Osman's own chronological mish-mash). One finds, for example, in pharaoh Hatshepsut's inscriptions such similarities to king David's Psalms that it is only natural to think that she, the woman-pharaoh - dated to the C15th BC, 500 years earlier than David - must have influenced the great king of Israel. Or that pharaoh Akhnaton's Hymn to the Sun, so like David's Psalm 104, had inspired David many centuries later. Only a proper revision of ancient Egyptian history brings forth the right perspective, and shows that the Israelites actually had the chronological precedence in these as in many other cases. It gets worse from a conventional point of view. The 'doyen of Israeli archaeologists', Israel Finkelstein of Tel Aviv University, frequently interviewed by Beirut hostage victim John McCarthy on the provocative TV program “It Ain't Necessarily So”, has, together with his colleagues, virtually written ancient Israel right off the historical map, along with all of its major biblical characters. This horrible mess is an inevitable consequence of the faulty Sothic chronology with which these archaeologists seem to be mesmerized. With friends like Finkelstein and co., why would Israel need any enemies! The Lawgiver Solon Whilst the great Lawgiver for the Hebrews was Moses, and for the Babylonians, Hammurabi, and for the Moslems, supposedly, Mohammed, the Lawgiver in Greek folklore was Solon of Athens, the wisest of the wise, greatest of the Seven Sages. Though Solon is estimated to have lived in the C6th BC, his name and many of his activities are so close to king Solomon's (supposedly 4 centuries earlier) that we need once again to question whether the Greeks may have been involved in appropriation. And, if so, how did this come about? It may in some cases simply be a memory thing, just as according to Plato's Timaeus one of the very aged Egyptian priests supposedly told Solon (Plato's Timaeus, trans. B. Jowett, The Liberal Arts Press, NY, 1949), 6 (22)) and /or Desmond Lee's translation, Penguin Classics, p. 34]: "O Solon, Solon, you Hellenes [Greeks] are never anything but children, and there is not an old man among you. Solon in return asked him what he meant. I mean to say, he replied, that in mind you are all young; there is no old opinion handed down among you by ancient tradition, nor any science which is hoary with age. …" Perhaps what the author of the Timaeus really needed to have put into the mouth of the aged Egyptian priest was that the Greeks had largely forgotten who Solomon was, and had created their own fictional character, "Solon", from their vague recall of the great king Solomon who "excelled all the kings of the earth in riches and in wisdom" (1 Kings 10:23). Solon resembles Solomon especially in roughly the last decade of the latter's reign, when Solomon, turning away from Yahwism, became fully involved with his mercantile ventures, his fleet, travel, and building temples for his foreign wives, especially in Egypt (10:26-29; 11:1-8). Now, it is to be expected that the pagan Greeks would remember this more 'rationalist' aspect of Solomon (as Solon) rather than his wisdom-infused, philosophical, earlier years when he was a devout Jew and servant of Yahweh (4:29-34). And, Jewish, Solon apparently was! Edwin Yamauchi has studied the laws of Solon in depth and found them to be quite Jewish in nature, most reminiscent of the laws of Nehemiah (c. 450 BC) ("Two reformers compared: Solon of Athens and Nehemiah of Jerusalem," Bible world. New York: KTAV, 1980. pp. 269-292). That date of 450 BC may perhaps be some sort of clue as to approximately when the Greeks first began to create their fictional Solon. Solomon was, as I have argued in my "Solomon and Sheba" article ("Solomon and Sheba", SIS C and C Review, 1997:1, pp. 4-15), the most influential Senenmut of Egyptian history, Hatshepsut's mentor; whilst Hatshepsut herself was the biblical Queen [of] Sheba. This article can now be read at: Solomon and Sheba http://www.academia.edu/3660164/Solomon_and_Sheba I have also identified Hatshepsut/Sheba as the biblical Abishag, who comforted the aged David (I Kings 1-4), and the beautiful virgin daughter of David, Tamar. See e.g. my article: The vicissitudinous life of Solomon's pulchritudinous wife (4) The vicissitudinous life of Solomon's pulchritudinous wife Professor Henry Breasted had made a point relevant to my theme of Greek appropriation - and in connection too with the Solomonic era (revised). Hatshepsut's marvellous temple structure at Deir el-Bahri, he said, was "a sure witness to the fact that the Egyptians had developed architectural styles for which the Greeks later would be credited as the originators" (A History of Egypt, 2nd ed., NY (Scribner, 1924), p. 274). One need not necessarily perhaps always accuse the Greeks of a malicious corruption of earlier traditions, but perhaps rather of a 'collective amnaesia', to use a Velikovskian term; the sort of forgetfulness by the Greek nation as alluded to in Plato's Timaeus. There is also to be considered that the Levantines and/or Jews had migrated to Greece. In 1 Maccabees 12:21 [Areios king of the Spartans, to Onias the high priest, greetings: "A document has been found stating that the Spartans and the Jews are brothers; both nations descended from Abraham." By this late stage the earlier histories would already have been well and truly corrupted. The Abrahamic emigrants would naturally have carried their folklore - not to mention their architectural expertise - to the Greek archipelago where it would inevitably have undergone local adaptation. The Jewish philosopher, Aristobulus, was one who claimed that the Greeks had borrowed heavily from the Hebrew Torah. Thus we read an article by E. S. Gruen (2016), “Jewish Perspectives on Greek Culture and Ethnicity: file:///C:/Users/Damien%20Mackey/Downloads/10.1515_9783110375558-011.pdf [Pp. 181-185. Note: Whereas the author himself, E. S. Gruen, believes that the Jews greatly manipulated the Greek texts to make these conform to their own point of view – I believe, on the other hand, that the Greeks appropriated, but distorted, the original Hebrew writings]: Aristobulus, a man of wide philosophical and literary interests … wrote an extensive work, evidently a form of commentary on the Torah, at an uncertain date in the Hellenistic period. …. Only a meager portion of that work now survives, but enough to indicate a direction and objective: Aristobulus, among other things, sought to establish the Bible as foundation for much of the Greek intellectual and artistic achievement. Moses, for Aristobulus as for Eupolemus and Artapanus, emerges as a culture hero, precursor and inspiration for Hellenic philosophical and poetic traditions. But Aristobulus’ Moses, unlike the figure concocted by Eupolemus and Artapanus, does not transmit the alphabet, interpret hieroglyphics, or invent technology. His accomplishment is the Torah, the Israelite law code. And from that creation, so Aristobulus imagines, a host of Hellenic attainments drew their impetus. Foremost among Greek philosophers, Plato was a devoted reader of the Scriptures, poring over every detail, and faithfully followed its precepts. …. And not only he. A century and a half earlier, Pythagoras borrowed much from the books of Moses and inserted it into his own teachings. …. …. Other philosophers, too, came under the sway of the Torah. So at least Aristobulus surmised. The “divine voice” to which Socrates paid homage owed its origin to the words of Moses. …. And Aristobulus made a still broader generalization. He found concurrence among all philosophers in the need to maintain reverent attitudes toward God, a doctrine best expressed, of course, in the Hebrew Scriptures which preceded (and presumably determined) the Greek precepts. Indeed, all of Jewish law was constructed so as to underscore piety, justice, selfcontrol and the other qualities that represent true virtues—i.e., the very qualities subsequently embraced and propagated by the Greeks. …. Aristobulus thereby brought the whole tradition of Greek philosophizing under the Jewish umbrella. That was just a part of the project. Aristobulus not only traced philosophic precepts to the Torah. He found its echoes in Greek poetry from earliest times to his own day. The Sabbath, for instance, a vital part of Jewish tradition stemming from Genesis, was reckoned by Aristobulus as a preeminent principle widely adopted and signaled by the mystical quality ascribed to the number seven. …. And he discovered proof in the verses of Homer and Hesiod. …. Aristobulus … interpreted a Hesiodic reference to the seventh day of the month as the seventh day of the week. And he (or his source) emended a line of Homer from the “fourth day” to the “seventh day.” …. The creative Aristobulus also enlisted in his cause poets who worked in the distant mists of antiquity, namely the mythical singers Linus and Orpheus. Linus, an elusive figure variously identified as the son of Apollo or the music master of Heracles, conveniently left verses that celebrated the number seven as representing perfection itself, associating it with the heavenly bodies, with an auspicious day of birth, and as the day when all is made complete. …. The connection with the biblical origin of the Sabbath is strikingly close …. Aristobulus summoned up still greater inventiveness in adapting or improvising a wholesale monotheistic poem assigned to Orpheus himself. The composition delivers sage advice from the mythical singer to his son or pupil Musaeus (here in proper sequence of generations), counseling him to adhere to the divine word and describing God as complete in himself while completing all things, the sole divinity with no rivals, hidden to the human eye but accessible to the mind, a source of good and not evil, seated on a golden throne in heaven, commanding the earth, its oceans and mountains, and in control of all. …. The poem, whether or not it derives from Aristobulus’ pen, belongs to the realm of Hellenistic Judaism. It represents a Jewish commandeering of Orpheus, emblematic of Greek poetic art, into the ranks of those proclaiming the message of biblical monotheism. Aristobulus did not confine himself to legendary or distant poets. He made bold to interpret contemporary verses in ways suitable to his ends. One sample survives. Aristobulus quoted from the astronomical poem, the Phaenomena, of the Hellenistic writer Aratus of Soli. Its opening lines proved serviceable. By substituting “God” for “Zeus,” Aristobulus turned Aratus’ invocation into a hymn for the Jewish deity. …. The campaign to convert Hellenic writings into footnotes on the Torah was in full swing. In that endeavor Aristobulus had much company. Resourceful Jewish writers searched through the scripts of Attic dramatists, both tragic and comic, for passages whose content suggested acquaintance with Hebrew texts or ideas. …. Verses with a strikingly Jewish flavor were ascribed to Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, and others to the comic playwrights Menander, Diphilus, and Philemon, again a combination of classical and Hellenistic authors. On Aeschylus, see my series: Ezekiel and Aeschylus. Part One: Aeschylus a Greek appropriation of Ezekiel? beginning with: (4) Ezekiel and Aeschylus. Part One: Aeschylus a Greek appropriation of Ezekiel? The fragments are preserved only in Church Fathers and the names of transmitters are lost to us. But the milieu of Jewish-Hellenistic intellectuals is unmistakable. …. Verses from Aeschylus emphasized the majesty of God, his omnipotence and omnipresence, the terror he can wreak, and his resistance to representation or understanding in human terms. …. Sophocles insisted upon the oneness of the Lord who fashioned heaven and earth, the waters and the winds; he railed against idolatry; he supplied an eschatological vision to encourage the just and frighten the wicked; and he spoke of Zeus’ disguises and philandering—doubtless to contrast delusive myths with authentic divinity. …. Euripides, too, could serve the purpose. Researchers found lines affirming that God’s presence cannot be contained within structures created by mortals and that he sees all, but is himself invisible. …. Attribution of comparable verses to comic poets is more confused in the tradition, as Christian sources provide conflicting notices on which dramatist said what. But the recorded writers, Menander, Philemon, and Diphilus, supplied usefully manipulable material. One or another spoke of an all-seeing divinity who will deliver vengeance upon the unjust and wicked, who lives forever as Lord of all, who apportions justice according to deserts, who scorns offerings and votives but exalts the righteous at heart. ….