by
Damien F. Mackey
And in the article, “How Sultan Süleyman became ‘Kanuni [Lawgiver]’,”
we find Suleiman likened to, not only King Solomon, again, but also to
King Solomon’s law-giving alter ego, Solon, and to Solomon’s contemporary (revised) Hammurabi, King of Babylon.
1. Joan of Arc: 1412-1431
2. Isaac Abarbanel: 1437-1508
3. Girolamo Savonarola: 1452-1498
4. Christopher Columbus: 1451-1506
5. Leonardo da Vinci: 1452-1519
6. Cesare Borgia: 1475-1507
7. Niccolò Machiavelli: 1469-1527
8. Martin Luther: 1483-1546
9. Suleiman the Magnificent: 1494-1566
1. Joan of Arc
Judith and Joan of Arc
Joan of Arc has also been described as a “second Judith”.
Whilst I am aware of Mark Twain’s famous quote, that: “History Doesn't Repeat Itself, but It Often Rhymes”, I can be somewhat sceptical when I read of a supposedly historical figure as a ‘second’, or a ‘new’, version of someone else: for example, a second King David, a new King Solomon, the new Deborah, a second Judith.
Queen Elizabeth I (1533-1603), whose life occurred, according to the textbooks, outside our C15th focus, outdoes just about every other female character in adopting biblical personae, including a heavy emphasis on Judith whom she is said to have emulated. I say “female”, because it is hard to beat the Byzantine emperor Heraclius in this regard, as told in my article:
Something almost miraculous about our emperor Heraclius
(6) Something almost miraculous about our emperor Heraclius
According to Aidan Norrie (2016), in the Abstract for his article on Elizabeth I:
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/rest.12258
Elizabeth I as Judith: reassessing the apocryphal widow's appearance in Elizabethan royal iconography
Throughout her reign, Queen Elizabeth I of England was paralleled with many figures from the Bible.
While the analogies between Elizabeth and biblical figures such as Deborah the Judge, King Solomon, Queen Esther, King David, and Daniel the Prophet have received detailed attention in the existing scholarship, the analogy between Elizabeth and the Apocryphal widow Judith still remains on the fringes. Not only did Elizabeth compare herself to Judith, the analogy also appeared throughout the course of the queen's reign as a biblical precedent for dealing with the Roman Catholic threat. This article re-assesses the place of the Judith analogy within Elizabethan royal iconography by chronologically analysing of many of the surviving, primary source, comparisons between Judith and Elizabeth, and demonstrates that Judith was invoked consistently, and in varying media, as a model of a providentially blessed leader. ….
Joan of Arc has likewise been described as a “second Judith”.
But this is far from being the only case down throughout textbook history, whether BC or AD, of women being likened to the Simeonite heroine at the time of King Hezekiah of Judah (c. 700 BC), Judith. For instance, a certain Ethiopian queen, Judith, or Gudit (Gwedit), has also been likened to Judith.
For a full range of such Judith types, both BC and (presumed) AD, see my article:
Judith’s fame continued to spread
(6) Judith’s fame continued to spread
Perhaps the heroine with whom Judith [Jehudith] of Bethulia is most often compared is the fascinating Joan [Jehanne] of Arc.
Donald Spoto, in his life of Joan, has a chapter five on Joan of Arc that he entitles “The New Deborah”. And Joan has also been described as a “second Judith”.
Both Deborah and Judith were celebrated Old Testament women who had provided defensive assistance to Israel.
Spoto, having referred to those ancient pagan women (Telesilla, etc.), goes on to write (p. 74):
Joan was not the only woman in history to inspire and to give direction to soldiers. .... Africa had its rebel queen Gwedit, or Yodit, in the tenth century. In the seventh appeared Sikelgaita, a Lombard princess who frequently accompanied her husband, Robert, on his Byzantine military campaigns, in which she fought in full armor, rallying Robert’s troops when they were initially repulsed by the Byzantine army. In the twelfth century Eleanor of Aquitaine took part in the Second Crusade, and in the fourteenth century Joanna, Countess of Montfort, took up arms after her husband died in order to protect the rights of her son, the Duke of Brittany. She organized resistance and dressed in full armor, led a raid of knights that successfully destroyed one of the enemy’s rear camps.
Joan [of Arc] was not a queen, a princess, a noblewoman or a respected poet with public support. She went to her task at enormous physical risk of both her virginity and her life, and at considerable risk of a loss of both reputation and influence. The English, for example, constantly referred to her as the prostitute: to them, she must have been; otherwise, why would she travel with an army of men?
Yet Joan was undeterred by peril or slander, precisely because of her confidence that God was their captain and leader. She often said that if she had been unsure of that, she would not have risked such obvious danger but would have kept to her simple, rural life in Domrémy.
[End of quote]
I think that, based on the Gudit and Axum (read Assyrian?) scenario[s], there is the real possibility that some of these above-mentioned heroines, or ancient amazons, can be identified with the famous Judith herself – she gradually being transformed from an heroic Old Testament woman into an armour-bearing warrior on horseback, sometimes even suffering capture, torture and death - whose celebrated beauty and/or siege victory I have argued on many occasions was picked up in non-Hebrew ‘history’, or mythologies: e.g. the legendary Helen of Troy is probably based on Judith, at least in relation to her beauty and a famous siege, rather than to any military noüs on Helen’s part.
In the name Iodit (Gwedit) above, the name Judith can be, I think, clearly recognised.
The wisdom-filled Judith might even have been the model, too, for the interesting and highly intelligent and philosophically-minded Hypatia of Alexandria.
Now I find in the Wikipedia article, “Catherine of Alexandria”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catherine_of_Alexandria
that the latter is also likened to Hypatia. Catherine is said to have lived 105 years (Judith’s very age: see Book of Judith 16:23) before Hypatia’s death. Historians such as Harold Thayler Davis believe that Catherine (‘the pure one’) may not have existed and that she was more an ideal exemplary figure than a historical one. She did certainly form an exemplary counterpart to the pagan philosopher Hypatia of Alexandria in the medieval mindset; and it has been suggested that she was invented specifically for that purpose. Like Hypatia, she is said to have been highly learned (in philosophy and theology), very beautiful, sexually pure, and to have been brutally murdered for publicly stating her beliefs.
Interestingly, St. Joan of Arc is said to have identified Catherine of Alexandria as one of the Saints who appeared to her and counselled her.
There have been those who have questioned the reliability of the story of Joan of Arc.
For example:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternative_historical_interpretations_of_Joan_of_Arc#:~:text=Graeme%20Donald%20also%20argues%20that,the%20French%20army%20by%20Chastellain.
“Graeme Donald also argues that Joan was not executed for witchcraft and that much of the story of Joan of Arc is a myth. He says there are no accounts or portraits of Joan of Arc’s victories during her time period, nor is she mentioned as a commander of the French army by Chastellain”.
The Book of Judith may hold the key to Joan of Arc.
2. Isaac Abarbanel
If my instincts are correct regarding Abarbanel (Abravanel) and his contemporary - with the not dissimilar name - Savonarola, the Book of Jeremiah may hold the key here. For numerous are the comparisons that can be made between the ancient Jewish prophet, Jeremiah, on the on hand, and Abarbanel and Savonarola, on the other.
While Abarbanel may be the Jewish face of Jeremiah, Savonarola, whose first name was a Jeremiah-like Girolamo (Jerome), would be Jeremiah’s Italian face. “Abravanel, then, is the prophet to the Jews, whilst Savonarola is a prophet to the Florentines”. I wrote on the pair, Abarbanel and Savonarola, linking them to Jeremiah, in my article:
Is “Savonarola” worth canonising?
(6) Is “Savonarola” worth canonising?
…. And indeed there does seem to be a distinct Jewish-Israelitish connection with Savonarola (who some even suspect was Jewish). It is with his Jewish contemporary, Abravanel, who can be somewhat like a ghostly projection of the real Jeremiah. Thus Benzion Netanyahu asks (in Don Isaac Abravanel: Statesman and Philosopher?, Cornell University Press, 5th edition, 1998, as quoted by Mor Altshuler at Haaretz.com Wed, January 19, 2011 Shvat 14, 5771. Emphasis added):
How did [Abravanel] this Jewish version of Savonarola, the fundamentalist monk who prophesied the fall of corrupt Rome-Babylonia, come up with the format for a democratic, constitutional Jewish state hundreds of years before one was established?
Netanyahu believes he took his cue from the Venetian republic, which had democratic components not often seen in those days.
Perhaps throwing off the yoke of this world made it easier for him to offer Europe in general, and the Jews in particular, an improved model of government that would only come into being centuries later. ….
[End of quote]
Netanyahu has even more to say about Savonarola as a veritable mirror-image of Abarbanel. According to Todd Endelman (Comparing Jewish Societies, p. 85, n. 36, emphasis added:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Abrabanel”): “Netanyahu notes the parallels between the prophecies of Savonarola and Abravanel. Often the only substantial difference is that one [Savonarola] is referring to the Florentines and Florence, while the other [Abravanel] is referring to the Jews and Jerusalem”.
Abarbanel, then, is the prophet to the Jews, whilst Savonarola is a prophet to the Florentines. Hence Abarbanel is the more accurate version of Jeremiah than is Savonarola because he, like Jeremiah, was an Israelite preaching to the Jews, and he was not physically martyred; whereas with Savonarola, a Catholic, he preached largely to the Catholics of Florence, with his life terminating in a real martyrdom.
But it is remarkable how closely the names accord: ‘Savonarola’ and ‘Abravanel’ (whose variants are Abrabanel, Abarbanel, Barbonel). He was a “Portuguese Jewish statesman, philosopher, Bible commentator, and financier of Lisbon and Venice” – belonging to a famous family of the time that claimed to trace its roots back to King David of the tribe of Judah.
The name ‘Isaac ben Judah Abarbanel’ reads like (to me) a kind of generic Hebrew name, with the latter part, Abarbanel, comprising Ab (father) Rabban (priest) and El (God). It may even be some sort of a title, since he is “commonly referred to as The Abarbanel”.
By de-Italianising the name, ‘Savonarola’, converting the ‘v’ to a ‘b’ and the ‘arola’ ending to a more Hebrew ‘arel’, we get Sabonarel, somewhat like Barbonel (Abarbanel).
Due to lack of available data on the Jews of this time, a researcher such as Benzion Netanyahu has to attempt to tie together various disparate threads. Altshuler (op. cit.) tells of the difficulties here, where “Netanyahu takes advantage of the fact that he is a biographer, and hence endowed with hindsight”:
…. Jewish historical research is short on biographies despite their importance for understanding the spirit of the times, possibly because shifting attention from a person’s work to his private life was perceived as presumptuous in Jewish tradition. Source material from which one can assemble a solid picture of the lives of great Jews is rare. Benzion Netanyahu grappled with this paucity of Jewish sources by plumbing the archives of the European monarchies under which Abravanel lived, from documents on the Inquisition to the correspondence of Christian scholars. The outcome is a comprehensive, two-part biography divided into sections on Abravanel’s life with the expulsion of the Jews from Spain and the annihilation of Jewish life in the Iberian Peninsula, and the evolution of Abravanel’s thinking. Combining these elements in one book allows Netanyahu to examine the relationship between the events of the time and Abravanel’s spiritual outlook.
The conclusion he comes to is that Abravanel, in the face of this cruel and senseless expulsion, began to despair whether the world would ever operate in a logical and just manner. This despair led him to give up his rationalist approach to history and to base his political theories on messianic theocracy, launching the age of Jewish messianism and heralding European utopianism. Useless fire and brimstone. In the same way that Don Isaac Abravanel was an admirer of Maimonides, but had no qualms about exposing flaws in his thinking, Netanyahu lauds Abravanel’s greatness but is not afraid to point out his weaknesses. As a leader of Spanish Jewry, he failed in his primary mission: alerting the Jews to the fact that expulsion was imminent and that a safe haven should be sought elsewhere, perhaps in the Ottoman Empire, which Abravanel, as a diplomat, knew was more tolerant. Abravanel’s nonchalance proved tragic. ….
[End of quote]
The key phrase in the above is (I think) “the evolution of Abravanel’s thinking”.
Of Jeremiah it could largely be said, as Netanyahu writes of Abarbanel, that he, “in the face of this cruel and senseless [he did warn of it, though] expulsion, began to despair whether the world would ever operate in a logical and just manner. This despair led him to give up his rationalist approach to history and to base his political theories on messianic theocracy, launching the age of Jewish messianism and heralding European [read Jewish] utopianism”.
This could be considered an ‘evolution’ of Jeremiah’s thinking.
Abarbanel also suffered a tri-part loss like the prophet Job (op. cit.):
…. Don Isaac Abravanel was born in 1437 to a wealthy and influential Jewish family in Spain that traced its ancestry back to King David. ….
….
[Abravanel] lost everything he had three times in a row − once when he fled to Portugal after his father converted to Christianity and the family went bankrupt; a second time in 1482, when he was accused of participating in a conspiracy of Portuguese nobles seeking to overthrow Juan II and was forced to take refuge in Spain; and a third time, in 1492, when the Jews were expelled from Spain.
The prophet Job, too, like Abarbanel, had famously suffered three catastrophic losses ‘in a row’ (Job 1:13-19).
…. Thanks to his diplomatic and financial skills, [Abravanel] managed to recover each time. Latin, Portuguese, Castilian and Hebrew − he spoke them all fluently. He was a Jewish scholar, an expert in philosophy, including the works of Aristotle and the Arab philosophers Ibn Rushd and Ibn Sina − and knowledgeable in the sciences of his time − magic, medicine and astrology.
My comment: But, on the Arab philosophers, see e.g. my article:
Melting down the fake Golden Age of Islamic intellectualism
(5) Melting down the fake Golden Age of Islamic intellectualism
His biblical exegesis put him on par with Rashi and the Ramban. His ability to spot contradictions in the writings of Maimonides led Rabbi Samuel David Luzzatto (Shadal) to describe him as the conqueror of the Jewish Aristotelians. As the author of a messianist trilogy, the historian Zeev Aescoly called him “the greatest codifier of messianism in his day”. If there was any Jew toward the end of the medieval period and the beginning of the modern period who deserved a royal title, it was Don Isaac Abravanel. ….
But what we also find is that Abarbanel’s writings also greatly influenced Christians [certainly the case with the biblical prophet Jeremiah]. Wikipedia again:
…. Christian scholars appreciated the convenience of Abravanel’s commentaries, and often used them when preparing their own exegetical writing. This may have had something to do with Abravanel’s openness towards the Christian religion, since he worked closely with Messianic ideas found within Judaism. Because of this, Abravanel’s works were translated and distributed within the world of Christian scholarship.
Exegesis
His exegetical writings are set against a richly-conceived backdrop of the Jewish historical and sociocultural experience, and it is often implied that his exegesis was sculpted with the purpose of giving hope to the Jews of Spain that the arrival of the Messiah was imminent in their days. This idea distinguished him from many other philosophers of the age, who did not rely as heavily on Messianic concepts.
Due to the overall excellence and exhaustiveness of Abrabanel’s exegetical literature, he was looked to as a beacon for later Christian scholarship, which often included the tasks of translating and condensing his works. ….
[End of quote]
Altshuler continues:
…. Many of the Jews of Spain fled to Portugal, falling into a trap: Juan II closed the borders and forced them to convert. Others were herded onto ships bound for the Mediterranean. Plague epidemics broke out on the overcrowded vessels, which were then refused entry to the ports of Italy. Only in Genoa were the passengers allowed to disembark for a short time, on a dock surrounded by water on three sides. “One might have mistaken them for ghosts”, an eyewitness wrote. “So emaciated they were, so funereal, their eyes sunken in their sockets. They could be taken for dead, if not for the fact that they were still able to move”.
Cf. Lamentations 2:10: “The elders of daughter Zion sit on the ground in silence; they have thrown dust on their heads and put on sackcloth; the young girls of Jerusalem have bowed their heads to the ground”.
2:11-12: “Infants and babies faint on the streets of the city. They cry to their mother, ‘Where is bread and wine?’ As they faint like the wounded in the streets of the city, as their life is poured out on their mothers’ bosom”.
4:7, 8: “Her princes …. Now their visage is blacker than soot; they are not recognized in the streets. Their skin has shriveled on their bones; it has become as dry as wood”.
[Altshuler]: …. By the summer of 1492, in less than three months, the Jews of Spain, whose cultural achievements had been a beacon to the Jewish world for hundreds of years, were wiped out. ….
Netanyahu tells of Abarbanel in words that could, in the main, be re-directed back to Jeremiah, but with one needing to replace all of the modern European history references now with ancient Jewish history and the Chaldeans. Thus the invader from across the Alps, Charles VIII of France takes the place of Nebuchednezzar the Chaldean invading from the north; Lorenzo ‘the Magnificent’ reminds (as according to Cheyne above) of king Jehoiakim of Jerusalem.
[Continued in the next section, on Savonarola].
3. Girolamo Savonarola
…. Allow me to supply the parallels, of Abravanel, with both Jeremiah and with Savonarola:
…. Jews dwell securely in all the countries of Spain, feasting on delicacies in peace and tranquility.
(Jeremiah 6:14): “They have treated the wound of my people carelessly, saying “Peace, peace”, when there is no peace”.
…. The alarm should have sounded with the onset of the pogroms of 1391, which was followed by waves of forced conversion and reached a peak when the Inquisition was established, 11 years before the final expulsion edict. Despite centuries of oppression, the Jews of Spain dismissed the dangers and became hooked on the illusion that the pogroms were a lightening rod that would divert the hatred toward the converts and away from the Jews. ….
(Jeremiah 7:4): “Do not trust in the deceptive words: “This is the Temple of the Lord, the Temple of the Lord, the Temple of the Lord”.
…. It is an intriguing tale about a man who soars high and falls low, who watches helplessly as ships [in Jeremiah’s case, probably carts] laden with Jews sail [roll] off to their deaths, and who hobnobs with princes and dukes in the palaces of Naples and Venice.
Jeremiah mixed with high and low alike.
…. The drama reaches a pinnacle in the final chapters: Abravanel, shattered and depressed by his people’s fate, disgusted with the vanities and temptations of this world, consolidates a pessimistic view of the world as Sodom and Gomorrah, fated to be destroyed in an apocalyptic war.
Cf. Savonarola: “After Charles VIII of France [cf. Nebuchednezzar the Chaldean] invaded Florence [Jerusalem] in 1494, the ruling Medici were overthrown and Savonarola [like Jeremiah] emerged as the new leader of the city, combining in himself the role of secular leader and priest. He set up a republic in Florence.
Characterizing it as a “Christian and religious Republic,” one of its first acts was to make sodomy, previously punishable by fine, into a capital offence. Homosexuality had previously been tolerated in the city, and many homosexuals from the elite now chose to leave Florence. ….
(Jeremiah 23:14): “… the prophets of Jerusalem … all of them have become like Sodom to me, and its inhabitants like Gomorrah”.
(Lamentations 4:6): “For the chastisement of my people has been greater than Sodom”.
…. His belief in the end of history is supported by intricate eschatological calculations proving that sometime between 1501 and 1513, salvation will arrive: An end-of-days war between Christians and Muslims will destroy evil Rome; from beyond the Sambatyon [akin to the Euphrates] River a Jewish army of the Ten Tribes will arise and take revenge on the enemies of Israel; the dead will return to life, and the Messiah, now revealed, will lead the last revolution − the revolution of the Kingdom of Heaven. ….
So did Savonarola foresee a New Jerusalem?: The reward for the self-sacrifice of the Florentines, he promised, would be the elevation of the city of Florence to the stature of the New Jerusalem, a model of Christian purity and the capital of the millennial kingdom.
And Jeremiah?: (Jeremiah 31:31): “The days are surely coming says the Lord, when I will make a New Covenant with the House of Israel and the house of Judah”.
(38, 40): “The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when the city [of Jerusalem] shall be rebuilt … sacred to the Lord. It shall never again be uprooted or overthrown”
…. This era of geographical exploration and the sense of space conjured up by the New World, which contrasted starkly with the gloomy prospects of the Jews, prompted Abravanel to fantasize about a mythical solution for his persecuted people. In this Jewish theocracy that he predicted would arise at any moment, he envisioned a humane and democratic government in which everyone would have the right to vote; in which the judges would be chosen by the people rather than the king; in which officials would serve the public, not their superiors.
(Jeremiah 33:14-15): “The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will fulfil the promise I made to the house of Israel and the house of Judah. In those days and at that time I will cause a righteous Branch to spring up for David; and he shall execute justice and righteousness in the land”.
One has to ask why God would so favour the city of Florence of all places, so as to make of it a ‘New Jerusalem’. Jerusalem renewed, yes. Or Rome, the eternal city.
These two holy cities. But Florence?
Like Jeremiah, Savonarola was a rather reluctant prophet.
He burned to engage in the work of saving souls, yet shrank for some years from entering on the priestly office. This might be ascribed to his sense of its responsibility and of the high qualifications which it demanded. No preparatory studies, no Church ceremonial, neither Pope nor prelate, he boldly averred, could make a man a priest; personal holiness, in his judgment ….
(Jeremiah 1:6): “Then I said, ‘Ah, Lord God! Truly I do not know how to speak, for I am only a [Hebrew na’ar, usually translated as] ‘boy’.”.
As a result, Savonarola is always cast as being lambasted for being “ungainly, as well as being a poor orator”. But it was Jeremiah’s actual words that were ridiculed, with his listeners mocking his mantra: ‘Terror on every side’.
Jeremiah also, like Savonarola, had a disdain for both priests and prophets.
And so did Abarbanel (though supposedly of the Catholic clergy).
Thus Netanayahu (Don Isaac Abravanel … p. 323):
An echo of Savonarola’s campaign against official Rome may be heard in the following statement of Abravanel: “All the priests of Rome and her Bishops pursue avarice and bribery and are not concerned with their religion, for the sign of heresy is upon their forehead”. (Salvations, p. 3, 4a).
Now this is again an entirely Jeremian image in relation to Unfaithful Israel (Jeremiah 3:3). “You have the forehead of a whore, you refuse to be ashamed” (the image taken up again later by St. John in Revelation 17:5).
Indeed, Savonarola called the Vatican “…. a house of prostitution where harlots sit upon the throne of Solomon and signal to passersby: whoever can pay enters and does what he wishes”.
But Jeremiah was, like Savonarola, virtually the only good man left, so he had to be chosen. “Search …. If you can find one person who acts justly and seeks truth …” (Jeremiah 5:1).
Savonarola is supposed to have claimed: “It is not the cowl that makes the monk – being not only the highest qualification for that office, but one indispensable and essential”.
This qualification he is thought to have possessed in a pre-eminent degree. In no Church has there been many men so holy. Fra Sebastiano da Brescia, a very devout Dominican, who was vicar of the congregation of Lombardy, and for a long time his confessor, declared his belief that Savonarola had never committed – what he calls – a mortal sin, and bears the highest possible testimony to the purity of his life. ….
Perhaps his reluctance arose also from the degraded position into which those who filled it had brought the sacred office. So openly abandoned to vice were most of them at that time, that he was in the habit of saying, “If you wish your son to be a wicked man, make him a priest!” ….
Savonarola, like Jeremiah, would suffer greatly for this: “Little did this gentle spirit, lover of peace as of purity, dream, as he entered the gates of the monastery, of a day when he would exclaim with Jeremiah, “Woe is me, my mother, that thou hast borne me a man of strife, a man of contention to the whole earth!” [a reference to Jeremiah 15:10]. But so it turned out”.
One could do worse than to view, in a Jeremian context, the apocalyptical warnings of Abravanel and Savonarola and their denunciations of the rulers and the clergy.
The Book of Jeremiah may hold the key to Girolamo Savonarola.
4. Christopher Columbus
Who am I? indeed!
If my instincts are correct regarding Christopher Columbus, the Book of Jonah holds the key in this case.
I think that the story of Christopher Columbus, a fiction, is the tale of Jonah writ large.
Here is what I wrote about the situation, as I see it, in my article:
Book of Jonah elements in the story of Columbus
Academia.edu | Search | Book of Jonah elements in the story of Columbus
The name Colombo is synonymous with
the name “JONAH,” which means, “dove.”
In “America’s Hebraic Heritage And Roots. The Hebraic Prophetic Roots Of America’s Discovery”, we read of an apparent Jewishness in Christopher Columbus:
http://www.threemacs.org/docs/Americas%20Hebraic%20Roots%20-%20Columbus%20and%20the%20Discovery.pdf
1. Christopher Columbus was believed to have been of both Jewish and Italian descent. Born in Genoa, Italy, his roots actually were from Spain.
2. His paternal grandfather was a [converso] who had his name changed from Colon to Columbo.
3. Conversos were Jews who had, by choice or necessity, converted to Christianity.
4. To survive Jewish annihilation during the Spanish Inquisition, Columbus was raised a Christian.
5. His use of the Spanish form of his name in his dairies and letters along with certain oddities lend great credence to the fact that he was Jewish.
6. Colon is a Spanish-Jewish name.
7. The name Colombo is synonymous with the name “JONAH,” which means, “dove.”
8. Jonah was the first Hebrew prophet sent to a Gentile nation but rebelled and found himself thrown overboard by lots during a fierce storm.
9. Prior to discovering America, Columbus found his fleet being tossed at sea by a violent storm on his return from the New World. The storm was so strong he recommended that the crew appease God with a sacrificial vow. One from among them was to vow to make a pilgrimage to a particular monastery if they survived. Columbus took 39 beans and marked a cross on one of them. They drew lots a total of four times and each time Columbus drew the marked bean.
10. Jonah’s mission was to go to a Gentile nation and be a light but when he disobeyed, God intervened with a storm. God used a storm to likewise push Columbus to discovering what we know today as North and South America.
11. Columbus sometime signed his name in a peculiar triangular form. Some historians believe this alluded to his Jewish heritage.
12. In 1484, Columbus was 33 years old. This is the year of a man’s life known in Italy as “anno de Christo,” the year of Christ, which according to tradition is reserved for revelation.
13. He felt he had received divine revelation to sail west and to take the name of Christ to the ends of the earth. Later in his dairies he likened himself to a modern day Moses.
14. It is possible that Columbus quest for gold was in his heart more for the restoration of Israel and the Temple than just lust for riches. ….
{Speaking of Colon, I am reminded of the famous Australian poet, professor James McAuley, my English teacher at the University of Tasmania around 1970, who - ever the grammarian - is reputed to have quipped, after he had to have part of his colon removed due to bowel cancer, ‘better a semi-colon than a full stop’}:
Memories of Australian poet, professor James P. McAuley
https://www.academia.edu/79766119/Memories_of_Australian_poet_professor_James_P_McAuley
In 1503, as we are told, Columbus and 116 sailors were stranded on Jamaica with little prospect of recue. According to Ronald A. Reis (Christopher Columbus and the Age of Exploration for Kids, p. 112): “The Spaniards, after four days of hell, felt as if they had been delivered from the whale’s belly, like the prophet Jonah”.
Perry F. Stone writes (Nightmare Along Pennsylvania Avenue: Prophetic Insight into America's Role, p. 61-62):
… Christopher Columbus … Spanish … Cristóbal Colón … was Jewish. … Research of the name Colombo reveals that it is synonymous with the name Jonah, which means “dove”. It is interesting to compare Jonah’s story in the Bible to the events surrounding Columbus. (See the Book of Jonah in the Bible).
The book The Light and the Glory says that on the return journey home from the New World, Columbus, having been deceived by the lust for gold, found his fleet being tossed at sea by a violent storm. …. The storm was so strong that Columbus recommended they appease God with a sacrificial vow that one of them would make a pilgrimage to a particular monastery. The men agreed, so Columbus took thirty-nine beans and marked a cross on one of them. They put the beans in a hat, drew lots, and the first time the beans were drawn, Columbus drew the marked bean. They drew lots three more times, with the marked bean being drawn by Columbus twice more. The odds of this happening are rare. It seems that Columbus was living up to the heritage of his namesake, and God was trying to get his attention!
Jonah was the first Hebrew prophet sent to a Gentile nation. His mission was to go to Nineveh and be a light unto them. When Jonah strayed from this, God intervened with a storm. Likewise, Columbus’s mission was to open the curtain on the New World. This New World would create a nation that would further the mission of bringing Christ to the nations, and God would not allow greed to undermine His plan. ….
The Jonah-Columbus comparison would not be complete without the Big Fish.
As I wrote in my article:
De-coding Jonah
(9) De-coding Jonah
Another note on 'AD' pseudo-history. Earlier on … I argued for the Nineveh-connected, and hence quite anachronistic Prophet Mohammed to have been a non-historical composite, partly based on Tobias, the son of Tobit of Nineveh. Although Mohammed would be regarded by most as being a true historical character, whilst Jonah would not, I would insist upon the very opposite.
The same comment would apply to that muddle-headed navigator, Columbus (meaning "Dove"), whose maritime epic is, for me, the story of Jonah 'writ large'. Christopher Columbus sets sail (rather more enthusiastically than had Jonah) to convert the pagans.
Many, many centuries before Columbus, 1492 and all that, the Bronze Age Mediterraneans (Cretan Philistines and the Levantines) were mining tons of nearly pure copper, for their precious bronze, from far-away Lake Superior in Northern America (Gavin Menzies, The Lost Empire of Atlantis, 2001).
“Columbus” (whoever he/it may have been) did not discover America!
Not surprisingly, though, “Columbus” is supposed to have encountered “a great fish” - a description that accurately translates Jonah 2:1's dag gadol (דָּג גָּדוֹל) ("... Columbus sees a Sea Monster"):
http://anomalyinfo.com/Stories/1494-september-114-columbus-sees-sea-monster
"From a modern English translation of [his son] Ferdinand's biography, we read that sometime between September 1~14 in 1494, this curious event occurred to Columbus and his men:
"Holding on their course, the ship's people sighted a large fish, big as a whale, with a carapace like a turtle's, a head the size of a barrel protruding from the water, a long tail like that of a tunny fish, and two large wings. From this and from certain other signs the Admiral knew they were in for foul weather and sought a port where they might take refuge."
"As far as I know, no such creature exists. So what did Columbus see?
'Did It Happen...?
"This is one of those moments where the gray zone of what is considered history and what is considered not history is fully exposed.
"History is often just stories that have been agreed upon and accepted, with no hard evidence past this agreement to support it... and in the case of most of Christopher Columbus' voyages, this is the case. Ferdinand's account of his father's life is taken as authoritative on many details that no other document can confirm; yet the story above is quietly ignored, even though it has the same amount of evidence to support it as anything else in Ferdinand's biography".
5. Leonardo da Vinci
“Over 1500 years before Leonardo Da Vinci became
the Renaissance Man, antiquity had its own in the form of Archimedes,
one of the most famous Ancient Greeks”.
Charles River Editors
If Leonardo da Vinci has been modelled to some degree upon a possibly fictitious Archimedes, then how much of what we have about Leonardo is truly reliable?
Or, to put it another way, we might ask: What is the real Da Vinci Code?
Yet again, if Archimedes, in turn, was (as I think) derived from Akhimiti of Lachish:
Did the Greeks derive their Archimedes from Sargon II’s Akhimiti?
(9) Did the Greeks derive their Archimedes from Sargon II's Akhimiti?
then this would make a Leonardo Da Vinci derived from Archimedes doubly suspect.
The two names, Archimedes and Leonardo, are constantly found mentioned together.
For instance, there is this article, “Archimedes and Leonardo Da Vinci: The Greatest Geniuses of Antiquity and the Renaissance”:
https://www.createspace.com/4430132
Authored by Charles River Editors
….
“Give me a place to stand, and I shall move the world.’"– Archimedes
“Iron rusts from disuse; stagnant water loses its purity and in cold weather becomes frozen; even so does inaction sap the vigor of the mind.” – Leonardo
Over 1500 years before Leonardo Da Vinci became the Renaissance Man, antiquity had its own in the form of Archimedes, one of the most famous Ancient Greeks. An engineer, mathematician, physicist, scientist and astronomer all rolled into one, Archimedes has been credited for making groundbreaking discoveries, some of which are undoubtedly fact and others that are almost certainly myth.
Regardless, he’s considered the first man to determine a way to measure an object’s mass, and also the first man to realize that refracting the Sun’s light could burn something, theorizing the existence of lasers over two millennia before they existed.
People still use the design of the Archimedes screw in water pumps today, and modern scholars have tried to link him to the recently discovered Antikythera mechanism, an ancient “computer” of sorts that used mechanics to accurately chart astronomical data depending on the date it was set to.
Mackey’s comment: Ah, but these water pumps were actually used by Sennacherib in Assyria in c. 700 BC, well before the Greeks. See Dr. Stephanie Dalley’s book (2015):
The Mystery of the Hanging Garden of Babylon
An Elusive World Wonder Traced
The article continues:
It has long been difficult to separate fact from legend in the story of Archimedes’ life, from his death to his legendary discovery of how to differentiate gold from fool’s gold, but many of his works survived antiquity, and many others were quoted by other ancient writers. As a result, even while his life and death remain topics of debate, his writings and measurements are factually established and well known, and they range on everything from measuring an object’s density to measuring circles and parabolas.
The Renaissance spawned the use of the label “Renaissance Man” to describe a person who is extremely talented in multiple fields, and no discussion of the Renaissance is complete without the original “Renaissance Man”, Leonardo da Vinci. Indeed, if 100 people are asked to describe Leonardo in one word, they might give 100 answers. As the world’s most famous polymath and genius, Leonardo found time to be a painter, sculptor, architect, musician, scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, geologist, cartographer, botanist, and writer.
It would be hard to determine which field Leonardo had the greatest influence in. His “Mona Lisa” and “The Last Supper” are among the most famous paintings of all time, standing up against even Michelangelo’s work. But even if he was not the age’s greatest artist, Leonardo may have conducted his most influential work was done in other fields. His emphasis on the importance of Nature would influence Enlightened philosophers centuries later, and he sketched speculative designs for gadgets like helicopters that would take another 4 centuries to create. Leonardo’s vision and philosophy were made possible by his astounding work as a mathematician, engineer and scientist. At a time when much of science was dictated by Church teachings, Leonardo studied geology and anatomy long before they truly even became scientific fields, and he used his incredible artistic abilities to sketch the famous Vitruvian Man, linking art and science together. ….
[End of quote]
Then there is this one by D. L. Simms, “Archimedes’ Weapons of War and Leonardo” (BJHS, 1988, 21, pp. 195-210):
https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/S0007087400024766
INTRODUCTION
Leonardo's fascination with Archimedes as well as with his mathematics is well known.
There are three fairly extensive and eccentric comments in the surviving notebooks: on his military inventions; on his part in an Anglo-Spanish conflict and on his activities, death and burial at the siege of Syracuse. Reti has examined the first of the three, that about the Architronito or steam cannon, mainly considering the origin of the idea for the cannon and its attribution to Archimedes, but with comments on the later influence of Leonardo's ideas.
Marshall Clagett has produced the most comprehensive attempt
to try to identify Leonardo's sources for the third. ….
Reti's analysis can be supplemented and extended in the light of more recent comments and Sakas' experimental demonstration of a miniature working model, and Clagett's proposed sources modified. The origins of the other reference, Leonardo's belief that Archimedes played a part in an Anglo-Spanish war, can also be rendered slightly less baffling. Any conclusions must necessarily be tentative given the generally accepted opinion that much less than half of Leonardo's manuscripts survive. ….
ARCHITRONITO
Leonardo's earliest surviving mention (late 1480s-1490) of Archimedes' weapons of war is perhaps the most startling (Ms.B 33r): ….
Architronito. Gunsight. Ensure that the rod en is placed over the centre of the table fixed beneath so that the water can fall with a single shot on to this table.
The Architronito is a machine of fine copper, an invention of Archimedes, and it throws iron balls with great noise and violence. It is used in this manner:—the third part of the instrument stands within a great quantity of burning coals and when it has been brought to white heat you turn the screw d, which is above the cistern of water abc, at the same time that you turn the screw below the cistern and all the water it contains will descend into the white hot part of the barrel. There it will instantly become transformed into so much steam that it will seem astonishing, and especially when one notes with what force and hears the roar that it will produce. This machine has driven a ball weighing one talent six stadia.
….
Origins of the attribution
Reti demonstrated that Leonardo's source of the idea for this weapon was the drawings of cannons in De Re Militari by Valturius, who stated that the cannon had been invented—ut putatur—by Archimedes. ….
[End of quote]
“Who knows which of Leonardo da Vinci’s inventions were really the brainchild of Archimedes of Syracuse?” https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/159447
6. Cesare Borgia
If Leonardo da Vinci may possibly be fake history, then what does that do to his supposed contemporary, Cesare Borgia?
For as we read further from smashwords.com :
…. In 1499 Leonardo di Vinci is hired by Cesare Borgia as a military engineer. He begins to work on a steam canon that had originally been an idea of Archimedes 1500 years earlier. Leonardo tells Cesare the story of Archimedes and how he made many discoveries in mathematics and science.
Archimedes visits Alexandria and falls in love with Princess Helena, and in spite of their age difference, they marry and return to Syracuse. Soon Helena gives birth to their only child, a daughter they name Arsinoe.
For nearly fifty years of peace, Syracuse is drawn into the war between Rome and Carthage. Archimedes must use all his vast knowledge to defend Syracuse and his very family.
Cesare offers to purchase the chest of ideas from Leonardo but he declines the offer.
[End of quote]
Mackey’s comment: Ah, Cesare Borgia!
He, too, may be under a bit of a credibility cloud. As I wrote in my article:
Achitophel and Machiavelli
(4) Achitophel and Machiavelli | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu
In Bringing the Hidden to Light: The Process of Interpretation (edited by Kathryn F. Kravitz, Diane M. Sharon), we find the requisite (if Achitophel is Machiavelli) comparison now between Absalom and the Prince, Cesare Borgia (p. 181):
…. As Melamed pointed out, although Luzzatto's interpretation followed the literal the literal meaning of the text and traditional Jewish commentators such as Kimḥi and Abrabanel, nevertheless he expressed it in the sprit and vocabulary of Machiavelli and the tradition of raison d’état; in Melamed's most felicitous formulation, “the House of Borgia in the ancient ... land of Israel”, Ahitophel plays Machiavelli to Absalom – his Cesare Borgia”. …. However, it should be observed that Luzzatto was not endorsing the behaviour of Absalom but only indicating, in the context of his refutation of the allegation of Tacitus that the Jews were sexually immoral, how in the spirit of Machiavelli and raison d’état, a prince might acquire power. ….
“The House of Borgia in the ancient land of Israel …”. Hmmmm.
[End of quotes]
Cesare Borgia seems to me to be yet another of those composite characters of which Heraclius (mentioned above) is a most extreme example.
Apart from the likeness of the House of Borgia to Israel, as just quoted, Cesare, appropriately, channelled something of his namesake Julius Caesar, himself a composite (and fictitious) figure:
Jesus Christ was the Model for some legends surrounding Julius Caesar. Part Two: Hellenistic Influence.
https://www.academia.edu/14805253/Jesus_Christ_was_the_Model_for_some_legends_surrounding_Julius_Caesar_Part_Two_Hellenistic_Influence
Cesare is thought to have deliberately propagandised himself as a new Julius Caesar:
https://sophieswertsknudsen.com/aut-cesare-aut-nihil/
‘Aut Caesar, Aut Nihil’ which means ‘Either Emperor or Nothing’ is the resonant, powerful motto we immediately associate with Italian Renaissance Prince Cesare Borgia. The phrase most likely coined by Julius Caesar himself, indicates sky high ambition for power and fame and the desire to succeed at all cost. Cesare was however not the only one to use it. Others did as well, both before and also after him.
Like marketing campaigns in our modern day, Cesare used various tools such as mottos, paintings, weapons and costume to make strong statements about himself, his culture, power, taste and ambition. Many of these tools were directly related to the Roman General Julius Caesar with whom Cesare Borgia liked to identify himself. His marketing campaign had only one purpose: to signal to his enemies and the people in Italy that a new powerful leader had risen; one that would stop for nothing. ‘Aut Caesar, aut nihil’ was probably first used by Cesare on banners that hung from the walls of Castel Sant’Angelo when he made his triumphant entry into Rome in 1500. After his downfall, the motto would be ridiculed by his enemies and they scoffed at the fact that he had reached ‘nihil’ (nothing).
7. Niccolò Machiavelli
If Niccolò Machiavelli truly had Cesare Borgia well in mind as a model for his Prince, as is generally thought, then, based on the above (# 6), the historicity of this malignant and mischievous master of manifold manipulations must also be up for grabs.
Even more so, given how notably Machiavelli shares likenesses with the biblical Achitophel, particularly in his sinister association with King David’s Prince son, Absalom:
Achitophel and Machiavelli
(9) Achitophel and Machiavelli
But what I really find staggering is just how closely the names of the like pair, Achitophel and Machiavelli, phonetically resemble each other:
ACHI T OPHEL
M ACHI AVELL I
8. Martin Luther
Martin Luther is commonly thought to resemble the biblical reformer, Nehemiah.
Pope Paul IV, who wanted Savonarola's books placed on the Index of Forbidden books, had in mind a different comparison: When Pope Paul IV examined [Savonarola’s] writings, he said “This is Martin Luther, this doctrine is pestiferous!”.
Who, we might ask, was Martin Luther?
9. Suleiman the Magnificent
The much-touted Islamic Caliphate is now on very shaky grounds, indeed, as I have determined both historically and archaeologically:
Oh my, the Umayyads! Deconstructing the Caliphate
(9) Oh my, the Umayyads! Deconstructing the Caliphate
Moreover, King Suleiman I as “a second Solomon”, and “a new Solomon”, might come under suspicion based on what I wrote at the beginning: “Whilst I am aware of Mark Twain’s famous quote, that: “History Doesn't Repeat Itself, but It Often Rhymes”, I can be somewhat sceptical when I read of a supposedly historical figure as a ‘second’, or a ‘new’, version of someone else …”.
Suleiman the Magnificent,
King of the Ottoman Turks
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“Suleiman … is therefore called the second Solomon
by many Islamic scholars …”.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
King Suleiman ‘the Magnificent’, a supposedly C16th AD Ottoman emperor (but born in the C15th AD era under consideration here) was, according to this source
http://everything2.com/title/Suleiman+the+Magnificent
“a new Solomon”.
And, similarly, Suleiman was “the second Solomon”.
A new Solomon is risen
Süleyman I was everything a magnificent ruler should be. He was just, making the right decisions in cases set before him. [Cf. I Kings 3:16-28] He was brave, leading his armies in battle until he had greatly expanded his sultanate. He was wealthy, living in luxury and turning his capital Istanbul into a splendid city. And he was cultured, his court teeming with philosophers and artists, and the Sultan himself mastering several arts, especially that of poetry.
….
Süleyman ascended to the throne in 1520 and stayed there for all of 46 years. During his reign he furthered the work of his forefathers until he had made the empire of the Ottomans into one of the world’s greatest.
The Sultan was named after Solomon, who was described as the perfect ruler in the Quran. Like the legendary king of the Jews, Süleyman was seen as just and wise, and a worthy follower of his namesake. He is therefore called the second Solomon by many Islamic scholars, although he was the first of that name among the Ottomans. Like the Solomon of old, this ruler was surrounded by splendour and mystery, and his time is remembered as the zenith of his people. ….
[End of quote]
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
Previously, I have discussed Greek appropriations of earlier ancient Near Eastern culture and civilization.
But might Arabic Islam have, in turn, appropriated the earlier Byzantine Greek architecture, and perhaps some of its archaeology?
There appears to be plenty written on this subject, e.g.: “The appropriation of Byzantine elements into Islamic architecture”, by Patricia Blessing, “art and architecture of the Muslim World, focusing on trans-cultural interactions in the Middle Ages, the appropriation of Byzantine elements into Islamic architecture, the transfer and authentication of relics in East and West, historical photographs of architecture and urban spaces”:
http://cmems.stanford.edu/tags/appropriation-byzantine-elements-islamic-architecture
And, again: http://www.daimonas.com/pages/byzantine-basis-persian.html
“This page is related to the Byzantine origins of what are claimed to be "Islamic" ideas. This page is limited to showing the Byzantine/Greek basis of Sassanian ideas which were absorbed by the even less original Arabs who replaced the faith of Zoroaster with one more brutal; that of Mohammed”.
A rock relief of Chosroes II at Taq-I Bustan “clearly shows the symbol which was to be appropriated by Islam, the crescent moon …”.
As for the archaeology of the walls of the city of Jerusalem itself, relevant to Sultan Suleiman the supposed wall builder there, the exact identification of these various wall levels is highly problematical, as attested by Hershel Shanks, “The Jerusalem Wall That Shouldn’t Be There. Three major excavations fail to explain controversial remains”: http://members.bib-arch.org/publication.asp?PubID=BSBA&Volume=13&Issue=3&ArticleID=5
So perhaps art and architecture attributed to the direction of Suleiman the Magnificent might need to be seriously re-assessed for the purposes of authentication.
Words are put into the mouth of a supposed Venetian visitor to the glorious kingdom of Suleiman the Magnificent that immediately remind me of the remarks made by the biblical Queen of Sheba upon her visit to the court of the truly magnificent King Solomon.
Compare (http://everything2.com/title/Suleiman+the+Magnificent):
“I know no State which is happier than this one. It is furnished with all God’s gifts. It controls war and peace; it is rich in gold, in people, in ships, and in obedience; no State can be compared with it. May God long preserve the most just of all Emperors.”
The Venetian ambassador reports from Istanbul in 1525
with (I Kings 10:6-9):
Then [Sheba] said to the king [Solomon]: “It was a true report which I heard in my own land about your words and your wisdom. However I did not believe the words until I came and saw with my own eyes; and indeed the half was not told me. Your wisdom and prosperity exceed the fame of which I heard. Happy are your men and happy are these your servants, who stand continually before you and hear your wisdom! Blessed be the Lord your God, who delighted in you, setting you on the throne of Israel! Because the Lord has loved Israel forever, therefore He made you king, to do justice and righteousness.”
And in the article, “How Sultan Süleyman became ‘Kanuni [Lawgiver]’”, we find Suleiman likened to, not only King Solomon, again, but also to King Solomon’s law-giving alter ego, Solon, and to Solomon’s contemporary (revised) Hammurabi:
http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/how-sultan-suleyman-became-kanuni.aspx?pageI
The first written, complete code of laws is nearly 4,000 years old, from the time of Hammurabi, the king of Babylon (r. 1792 B.C. to 1750 B.C.), although fragments of legal codes from other cities in the Mesopotamian area have been discovered. Hammurabi is still honored today as a lawgiver. In the Bible, it was Moses whom the Jews singled out as a lawgiver and among the ancient Greeks, Draco and Solon. ….
….
Süleyman oversaw the codification of a new general code of laws. Not only were previous codes of law taken into account, new cases and analogies were added. Fines and punishments were regularized and some of the more severe punishments were mitigated.
….
The kanunnames are collections of kanuns or statutes that are basically short summaries of decrees issued by the sultan. The decrees in turn were made on the basis of a particular individual, place or event but when issued, these particular details were not included. The publication of such a general kanunname throughout the empire was the responsibility of the nişancı, an official whose duty it was to attach the sultan’s imperial signature on the decrees issued in his name.
….
The sultan held the judicial power and judges had to follow what he decreed.
….
What Kanuni Sultan Süleyman did to earn his sobriquet as ‘lawgiver’ has often been compared to the just ruler King Solomon, from the Old Testament.
[End of quote]
