Danaans and the Tribe of Dan



[The AMAIC considers the Middle East – West comparisons of John R. Salverda as interesting, with some of them we think being very likely. But we do not necessarily agree with all of the following]  

Danaans

by-John R. Salverda

Background:

The early Greeks were once ruled by Israelites in addition to receiving cultural and ethnic input from the Canaanite Nations. This is reflected in Greek Mythology.

 
The Israelite Tribe of Dan had early contacts with Greece and with offshoots of the Greeks in Ionia (present-day western Turkey on the Asian side).

In the article below, John R. Salverda, analyses through Greek Legends compared to Biblical Narrative parallels to Ancient Israel.

The Danites were a band of rovers, they were not satisfied with the size of the allotment which the official coalition of the Jacobites had afforded them, around Zorah and Eshtaol, so they defied the priesthood of Phinehas, appointed a Levitical priesthood of their own, (directly descended from Moses, not Aaron) and set out to found new lands. First they went up north, and, with the apparent approval, or at least the acquiescence of the Sidonians and the Upper Manassites, they took the city of Laish, (this city was very close to the Sidonian capitol at the time, a place called Hazor) killed all the Laishites, moved in, and called the place Dan, after their own tribal patriarch. They also held the seaport of Joppa, and it must have been their friendly relations with the seafaring Sidonians that allowed them to build a fleet of ships there. Then, in the days of Deborah, war broke out between the sons of Jacob, and the Sidonians. Treaty obligations, agreed to by the Danites, called for a mutual non aggression pact, with the Sidonians. (The Sidonians had already upheld their end of the bargain when they withheld retaliation against the Danites at the taking of Laish.) When the sons of Jacob threatened the Danites for their neutrality in the war, in accordance with the 'Song of Deborah,' (at Judges 5:17) the Danites, 'lived in ships.' These then, were the Danaans, who 'fled' in their keeled ships, from their brothers, the sons of 'Aegyptus,' (the Jacobite) to live with the Inachids at Argos, in the land of, what would come to be called, 'like Canaan' (Mica+Cana, Mycenae).

The Greeks tell a story of how the Danaans, one of the main branches of the ancient Greek peoples, came from their Original homeland to settle with the Inachids of Argolis. These Danaans, otherwise known as the daughters of Danaus, were fleeing from their cousins the sons of Aegyptus. Danaus and Aegyptus were brothers, the former having fifty daughters but no sons, and the latter having fifty sons but no daughters. Aegyptus was intent on marrying his fifty sons to the fifty daughters of Danaus, but Danaus and his girls wanted no part of any such wedding. H. J. Rose in his, "A Handbook of Greek Mythology" (page 272), has an interesting take on this wedding between cousins. He says, "This was of course the natural thing for them to do, by Greek law, for a girl with no brothers, ... an encumbrance on the estate, as Attic law called her, was by universal custom married to her next of kin." This is interesting because Rose has here shown us, that the Greeks dealt with the problem of inheritance, where the father has had no sons but only daughters, in a way that was very similar to the Hebrew law. For his comment cannot help but remind us of the story in the scriptures, about the daughters of Zelophehad.

Zelophehad had, not fifty, but five daughters and no sons. None of them were married, at the time that Joshua and the chieftains were dividing up the land of Canaan. They complained in the presence of the high priest, that it would not be fair if the inheritance of their father were to be divided up amongst the other tribes. It was therefore agreed upon, so that a family might not lose its inheritance altogether, that in the case where there were no sons but only daughters, the girls could indeed inherit the property. Now, while the girls had gotten their inheritance, there were those who feared that they may marry men from other tribes thereby letting the inheritance be divided up among the other tribes anyway. In order to prevent this possibility, a remedy was decided upon whereby the daughters would have to agree to marry within their own clan. Then, hopefully, the girls would eventually produce sons of their own who could pass the inheritance down through their family line. While we are told about the girl's request to receive their father's inheritance, the Hebrew scriptures do not inform us as to what the daughters of Zelophehad thought about the forced marriage arrangement, this later stipulation, would obviously not have been so favorably accepted by them as the original judgment was. Sure enough, in keeping with the comparison between the Greek and Hebrew stories, just as Hypermnestra and her sisters the daughters of Danaus were married unto their father's brother's sons, so we are told in the Hebrew scriptures at Numbers 36:11 "For Mahlah, Tirzah, and Hoglah, and Milcah, and Noah, the daughters of Zelophehad, were married unto their father's brother's sons."

Now, of course, the intent here is not necessarily to equate the story about the daughters of Zelophehad with the story about the daughters of Danaus, however, the similarities between the Hebrew and Greek laws in this regard, are certainly worth our notice. It should furthermore be here pointed out, that the Hebrew story takes place, chronologically speaking, in the days just prior to the Danite apostasy. Also noteworthy, is the fact that the daughters of Zelophehad, who are biblically referred to, at Joshua 17:6, as the daughters of Manasseh, (they were in fact his great, great, great, granddaughters) were of the clan of Gilead. Thus, they were associated with the Danites (the Greek Danaus) in the so called, "song of Deborah," (Judges 5:17 "Gilead abode beyond Jordan: and why did Dan remain in ships'") as opposed to joining the sons of Jacob (the Greek Aegyptus) in their war against Sisera. Therefore, it seems possible at least, that the Danites who left Israel in those days, could have brought with them, as one of the grievances justifying their departure, this story of their Gileadite Allies, which was indeed current at that very time. In fact, the Greek law, that parallels the Hebrew one, and which they apparently continued to follow in their new Grecian homeland, had only recently been introduced into Hebrew law just prior to their emigration.
The Greeks say that the Danaans came to the city of Argos and demanded their portion of royalty there. They claimed to be descendants of Io and therefore members of the royal family. (It does seem reasonable that, as descendants of Abraham, they could have pressed their partial ownership of Hebron, the parent city, as a 'legal' claim to royalty over its colony.) They had been chased from the land of Aegyptus, (the Jacobite) by their brothers, the sons of Aegyptus. To accomplish this emigration, they are said to have invented the keeled ship, which enabled them to sail over the deep seas, and make their escape to Argos. The Greek claim that the Danaans invented the keeled ship, fits nicely with the Biblical claim that the Danites lived in ships, they were after all in possession of the seaport Joppa, where by all indications ship building was a major industry. It is often said, by historians who have studied the matter, that the Phoenicians with their access to the cedars of Lebanon, one of the few trees which produces timbers large enough to be suitable for the task, were the probable inventors of the keeled ship. A simple reclassification of the Hebrew Danite, as a branch of the Phoenicians, makes this speculation fit the Greek myth.

Neither does the Saga end here because then, in accordance with Greek mythology, the sons of Aegyptus also went to Argolis, following after the delinquent Danaans, to bring them back and punish them for their treachery. But it took them a bit longer to get there, leap frogging from port to port along the coasts, in their less seaworthy unkeeled barges. By the time the sons of Aegyptus arrived at Argos, the Danaans were already established, with a degree of royal power, and the Argolian army was ready to defend them. Now, the sons of Aegyptus, a mere posse in the face of an army, could not enforce a return upon the Danaans, and because they were told not to return empty handed, they decided to quit their homeland back in Israel, and resolved to remain in Argos. The sons of Aegyptus sued for their portion of the royalty at Argolis on the same basis that the Danaans did, and they were recognized as well.

This brings us to a story that seems to reflect the circumstances that brought about an end to the war between the northern Canaanites of Hazor and the Jacobites, which must have been what was known to the Greeks as, "the myth of Lynceus and Hypermnestra" or, otherwise known as, the myth of 'The Danaids.' The Jacobites were not united in their war against the Canaanites, as we have pointed out the Danites did not participate in this war, and they were admonished by Deborah for their complacency, so were the people of Gilead who also apparently sat out the hostilities. The term "Gilead" was an often used alternative name for the phrase "upper Manasseh," which makes a plausible origin for the name "Hypermnestra," for the Hebrews were fond of assigning a figurative woman to represent national or tribal groups, and the word "hyper," is the usual Greek term indicating "above" or "beyond," as in beyond a river. Also, as if there weren't enough coincidences between these two stories already, the Greek name "Lynceus" means the same thing in Greek, that the Hebrew name "Laish" means in Hebrew, namely a "small lion." Therefore, as allies in opposition to the Jacobite aggression, it is not completely unreasonable, that the tribe of "upper Manasseh," who spared the city of "Laish," during the war against Canaan, may have served as the origin for the Greek myth wherein Hypermnestra, refusing her charge to kill him, spare the life of Lynceus. Perhaps they were considered contractual partners, as if under a treaty. It is plausible, is it not, that such a treaty or contract, might be symbolized, in Greek mythology, as a marriage. At least we don't have to rely exclusively on the Hebrew story of the daughters of Zelophehad, as the origin for the Greek myth about the wedding of Hypermnestra and Lynceus.

Those Jacobites who made up the coalition of the willing in the struggle against Canaan, were able to win the war through the efforts of a very brave woman named Jael. Jael was not a Jacobite instead she belonged to a race, known as the Kenites, who were, at that time, also at peace with the Canaanites. However, the Kenites were on friendly terms with the sons of Jacob as well, in fact, Zipporah, the wife of Moses was a Kenite (also called Midianite and Ethiopian), and the apostate Danite priesthood were her descendants. Jael herself was a relative who could not have been too far removed from the Danite priesthood, for it is noted right in the Scriptural account of the war, that her family was descended from the house of Hobab, who is therein called the father-in-law of Moses. It may have been this Kenite relationship to the Danite priesthood, combined with Danite treaty obligations mentioned earlier as necessitated by the close proximity of the Danite stronghold at Laish to Hazor the chief city of the northern Canaanites, that gave the Canaanite General Sisera the false sense of security that he must have had in order for him to take a nap in the tent of Jael.
Jael deluded the weary Sisera completely and when he had fallen asleep, she took a pin and ran him through so that he died. Now, how many stories are there in which a man is beguiled into falling asleep by, and in the presence of, the woman who intends to murder him, and then while the man is sleeping the treacherous woman runs him through with a pin and kills him' I can think of only two, one is the Scriptural account of Jael and Sisera, and the other is the Greek myth that is known as 'The Danaids.' Furthermore, it is not only this very particular story that coincides between the Scriptures and the myth, but also the placement sequentially of each tale. Just as the story of Jael and Sisera comes at the end of the war that saw a falling-out between the Jacobites and their brothers the Danites, who 'dwelt in ships,' so to, the Greek myth of the Danaids is the story of the subsequent reconciliation between the progeny of Danaus, who fled in ships from their brothers the sons of Aegyptus at the time of their quarrel.

It should be said at this juncture that, while the scriptural story makes the female assassin Jael out to be a heroine, the Greek myth of the Danaids is coming to us from the complete opposite point of view, for the Greek heroine Hypermnestra is famed for not doing, exactly what Jael did do. In fact the Greeks must have looked at the deed of Jael as an act of the most heinous kind of treachery, for they have assigned to the other forty-nine sisters of Hypermnestra, those who did commit the deceitful act, an extra punishment of frustration in Hades. They are compelled to unsuccessfully fill a leaky water jar forever. Thus the Danaids can always be recognized on pottery, coins, and other works of art, by the fact that they were always carrying their ever present water jugs. It is interesting to note, in this regard, that according to the song of Deborah, the water distributors played an important role in spreading the word that rallied the warriors who fought on the side of the perfidious Jael, furthermore, when Sisera came to the tent of Jael, the first thing he asked for was to be served water. At any rate, in vilifying the treacherous Jael it does seem as though the Greeks felt the need for some reason, perhaps the one here outlined, to defame the entire water carrying guild as well.

Are we to conclude that these two very similar traditions, containing complete series' of parallel motifs, each sprang up independently and without cross contamination between these two cultures, the Greek and the Hebrew, separated only by a well worn path across the Mediterranean sea? We know that pottery traversed between Greece and the Levant, so why are we so reluctant to identify the popular stories that were told in each place? This, perhaps wouldn't be so difficult to admit in itself, but in fact I think that we shall find, that it was more than simple cross contamination, it was a more direct contact, for the original waves of immigration to Argolis in Greece, the forefathers of the Mycenaean civilization, were the sons of Anak, closely followed by the Danites and the Jacobites, but of these, predominantly the Danites, so much so, that throughout the writings of Homer, he usually refers to the Peloponnesian Greeks, by the general term "Danaans."

 
At this point, the question naturally arises; Did the Danaans come from, the Scriptural home of the Danites in the land of Jacob, or as the Greek myth seems to indicate, from the land of Egypt? If there is a simple answer to this question, it is this; The Greeks had a poor knowledge of world geography. Furthermore, our understanding of Greek geography leaves much to be desired. While, on the one hand, it is true that we moderns now call the land of the Nile, Egypt, and we did get this habit from the Greeks, it is not so certain, on the other hand, that the original ancient Greek myth tellers themselves, had this same interpretation. For the ancient myth itself, which we have culled from Apollodorus ( 2.1.4-5), runs thusly; "Belus (the father of Aegyptus) remained in Egypt, reigned over the country, and married Anchinoe, daughter of Nile, by whom he had twin sons, Aegyptus and Danaus, but according to Euripides, he had also Cepheus and Phineus. Danaus was settled by Belus in Libya, and Aegyptus in Arabia." Here we can plainly see, that Aegyptus was not a King of Egypt, but of some other land in Arabia. The Greek myths go on to tell us, that Aegyptus in his Arabian land, conquered a nearby people who were known as the "Melampodes," and that it was this territory, that he went on to name after himself, "Egypt." The term, "Melampodes," often interpreted as meaning "black footed," is thought by many to be another name for the Egyptians themselves. Certainly Aegyptus would not have had to conquer the people whom his father was ruling over. However, if we are to look for a people who's land neighbored the land of Arabia, and who were not already subjected to Egyptian suzerainty, then I suggest, that we look to those ancient rebellious slaves from Egypt who lived on the border of Arabia, the Jacobites. And since the people who lived in the land of Jacob at that time, were the same people who once served as slaves, stomping out the mud bricks for the Pharaoh's building projects, the term "Melampodes," or "black footed," could easily have been a derisive reference to them, as famed for their muddy black feet. They had as we know, come from the land of the Nile, so the Greek confusion between the Melampodes and the Egyptians wouldn't seem to be so far fetched after all. (Do we call the calf god, 'of Egypt,' because of the Greeks? Perhaps we should change that to, 'Jacob's calf god.')

 
Furthermore, it should be pointed out that the term "Egypt," was not the popular nor usual name for the land of the Pharaohs. By any measure, the most popular name was "Misir," as in its equivalent Hebrew name Mizraim. The Hittites, the Assyrians, and the Chaldeans, like the modern Arabs all used this name, and not the name "Egypt." In fact the Greeks were aware of this name for the land of the Nile from a very early date as well. The ancient Greek script, called linear B, which was used by the Danaans, and has been deciphered as the language of Mycenaean Greek by the modern philologists, does contain the usual term, in the form "Misirayo," which has been translated to mean, "the Egyptian." The term "Aikupitiyo," has also been found to occur in the same linear B script, and it has been translated as well to mean, "the Egyptian." Of course, these modern scholars are only following a well established usage and offer no explanation as to why the Mycenaean Greeks should refer to the Egyptians by two different names in the same script. Allow me to offer an explanation, The Mycenaean word, "Aikupitiyo," means, just as it so closely resembles "Jacobite," they were like the people of Misir, but not exactly. This resemblance between the two words, is striking, but this it in itself is not enough to identify them with each other, however, combined with the similarities between the stories in the Hebrew scriptures, and the myths of the Greeks, we may draw some more definite conclusions.

We know from the Scriptures that the Jew wandered to the land of the "Jacobite," but the myths have Io wandering to the land of "Aegyptus." And, while we know that the Danites had a family quarrel with their brothers the "Jacobites" which caused them to retreat into their ships, the myths have the Danaans fleeing by ship from their brothers, the sons of "Aegyptus." We notice the error, but we especially notice the consistency of it, it is apparent that the earlier myths had it right, but the later speculation misplaced the name of Jacob on the land of the Nile. If this last point should seem like a circular argument remember, the evidence for identifying Io and the Danaans, with the Jew and the Danite, are strong enough to stand on their own. Identifying Jacob with Aegyptus is a conclusion based upon these stronger evidences, it is certainly not supposed by me to be proof of the Io and Danaus theories.

 
So far we've only covered the few short generations between Joshua's expelling of the Anakim, and Deborah's report of the Danite apostasy, many other similar waves of Greek immigration by the descendants of Io, were to follow. For it was about 100 years after the days of the Danite apostasy, that the sons of Perseus immigrated to Argolis from the city of Joppa in Phoenicia, and these more recent Danites had, in the mean time, developed their own version of the events of Hebrew history. These sons of Perseus, those whom we will be referring to as the Perseids, have been attributed with building the walls of Mycenae and as such, can be placed into actual historic chronology. For these walls have been found by archaeologists and dated in synchronization with Egyptian history. The Perseids knew that they were related to the earlier established Danaans by race, but as to the story of Io and Hermes they must have had their doubts. It is apparent that they had neither the ability nor the desire to abolish the earlier mythology, so they simply added their own version of history onto it, as if their stories were subsequent events. They gave a son to Hypermnestra and Lynceus whom they called "Abas," (plausibly meant to represent Abraham,) which is the usual Hebrew word for "father," and they made this Abas to be the father of their own mythological history, which they began at the story of a Acrisius and Proetus. Of any story attributable to the Greek mythological character who was known as Abas there is little to report. It was said by some that he was a great warrior, but there is no report of his participation in any war, some say that he invented the shield, or that he had a magic shield which one only had to display, (a bit like the Ark of the Covenant,) and the enemy would be miraculously disbursed. Not to discount the story of his shield, but there was a much more important role to be played by Abas, which was that of a genealogical connector between the earlier Danite/Inachid dynasty and the subsequent Danite/Perseid one.

 
-John R. Salverda

For more articles on the Hebraic Connections of Greek Mythology, see:
"Helleno-Yishurin. The Hebrew Origin of Greek Legends"

Joshua and the Canaanite Conquest of Lycia in Turkey

[The AMAIC considers the Middle East – West comparisons of John R. Salverda as interesting, with some of them we think being very likely. But we do not necessarily agree with all of the following]  

Bellerophon


Joshua and the Canaanite Conquest of Lycia in Turkey


by John Salverda



The Day of Miracles



The first act of the newly commissioned Joshua consisted of three incidents that all miraculously happened on the same day. These were; the crossing of the Jordan River, the convocation at Shechem, and the mass circumcision at Gilgal.





Bellerophon had a very similar episode when he came to the Xanthus River. To quote Homer, "Bellerophon went to Lycia in the blameless convoy of the gods; when he came to the running stream of Xanthus, '" ("Iliad," book 6, Page 162) By the phrase, "convoy of the gods," Homer means to indicate that Bellerophon was traveling with the twelve gods of Olympus no doubt. (I have shown elsewhere, in an article entitled "The Council of the Gods" that the twelve gods are analogous to the twelve tribes, as in the story about the Egyptian exile of the Olympians.) The Scriptures say of Joshua at the Jordan; "Now therefore take you twelve men out of the tribes of Israel, out of every tribe a man. And it shall come to pass, as soon as the soles of the feet of the priests that bear the ark of Yahweh, the Lord of all the earth, shall rest in the waters of Jordan, that the waters of Jordan shall be cut off from the waters that come down from above; and they shall stand upon an heap." (from Jos, 2:12,13)

Notice how the waters "stand upon an heap." This spectacle, glossed over by many commentators, was well noticed by the locals who feared greatly the divine assistance afforded to Joshua. Here is a quote from Ginzberg's "Legends of the Jews," "The crossing of the river was the occasion for wonders, 'Scarcely had the priests, 'set foot in the Jordan, when the waters of the river were piled up to a height of three hundred miles. All the peoples of the earth were witnesses of the wonder." This wonder was reported by the Greek mythographers as well, for to quote Plutarch; " Bellerophon waded into the sea, and prayed to Poseidon that, as a requital against Iobates, the land might become sterile and unprofitable. Thereupon he went back after his prayer, and a wave arose and inundated the land. It was a fearful sight as the sea, following him, rose high in air and covered up the plain. The men besought Bellerophon to check it, but when they could not prevail on him, the women, pulling up their garments, came to meet him; and when he, for shame, retreated towards the sea again, the wave also, it is said, went back with him. 'For this reason it was the custom for the Xanthians to bear names derived not from their fathers but from their mothers." (From Plutarch, "On the Virtue of Women" Book IX. "The Lycian Women") Notice how the wave rose high in the air and "followed" him, this we are told, was to keep his enemies from being able to follow him. (as in Ginzberg where the Israelites were able to march the seventy miles to Shechem "un-assailed.") Notice also the bit about the matrilineal women, and keep it in mind for comparison with Joshua's role at Gilgal and "rolling back the reproach of Egypt" which we shall cover in more detail later in this article.



"'The day continued eventful. Un-assailed, the Israelites marched seventy miles to Mount Gerizim and Mount Ebal, and there performed the ceremony bidden by Moses in Deuteronomy 'Thereupon an altar was erected on Mount Ebal with the stones, each weighing forty seim, which the Israelites had taken from the bed of the river while passing through the Jordan.' All this happened on one day, on the same day on which the Jordan was crossed, and the assembly was held on Gerizim and Ebal, 'the day on which the people arrived at Gilgal, where they left the stones of which the altar had been built. At Gilgal Joshua performed the rite of circumcision on those born in the desert, " (From Ginzberg, "Legends of the Jews") Notice how in the "Legends of the Jews" the need is felt to explain the unbelievable ability of Joshua and the Israelites to miraculously jump from one distant location to another at this one juncture in their travels. This inconsistency of Joshua's movements is taken by some to be a flaw in the story caused by a poor editing job as tales from differing sources were cobbled together. However, it must be pointed out that this so called "inconsistency" turns up in the parallel Greek myth of Bellerophon at the exact same juncture in his story, thus arguing for it to be original to the tale. For Bellerophon had come to Xanthus in Lycia before he learned of his commission to kill the Chimera, he didn't need Pegasus up until this point, but now he did, and in order to acquire the winged steed he would suddenly and without explanation appear hundreds of miles away, (even across the sea) at a mountain in the city of Corinth, just as did Joshua at mount Ebal in the city of Shechem. As Strabo tells us, "Peirene (a spring of Corinth) was wont to rise over the surface and flow down the sides of the mountain. And here, they say, Pegasus,' was caught while drinking by Bellerophon." (Geography 8. 6. 20) Furthermore Bellerophon, again like Joshua, would be required to build an altar, as Pindar says, "Then too that he should build an altar with all speed'" (Isthmian Ode 7. 44 ff). Thus he won divine favor and was able to capture Pegasus, which he would need to fight his battles. (Here it must be pointed out that Shechem, the city of Joseph's burial, is comparable to Corinth the city of Sisyphus, the altar on the mountain and Jacob's well, of "living water" do not pass un-noticed) Of course once mounted upon Pegasus he could return to Lycia in the wink of an eye and begin the conquest of the place.



The Conquest of Lycia



Although little known, the conquering hero Bellerophon, has got to be considered as one of the most accomplished.

Like Joshua in Canaan, Bellerophon in the vicinity of Lycia, was said to have undertaken a series of military campaigns designed to rid the entire country of every enemy. Lycia, was like Canaan in other ways as well, for as we shall recall, it was among the "Lycians" whom "Proetus" had lived and intermarried while he was in exile from "Acrisius," just as it was the "Canaanites" among whom "Esau" had lived and intermarried while "Jacob" took over the kingdom. (I have identified Jacob with Acrisius, and Esau with Proetus elsewhere.) Thus there is a kind of consistency here, as to the enemy nation, in both cases that had lasted right through the exile of the two comparable patriarchs Acrisius and Jacob, to the return of the equivalent deliverers Perseus and Moses, right down to the analogous conquering heroes Bellerophon and Joshua. It seems evident that many of the people, rather than fighting and possibly getting killed by the divinely assisted forces of Joshua, simply left the land of Canaan at that time to live in new lands. Lycia in Asia Minor was one of their main destinations, they also took with them to their new homes their stories, where we can find them in Greek mythology. It is thus apparent that the nation that became known to the Greeks as Lycia was largely made up of those people who once lived in Canaan but were flushed out in the days of Joshua, such as the Amorites, the Jebusites of Salem, and the Horites or Hurrians among others. I will return to this topic later in this article with evidence that the Scriptures actually report this mass departure.



The name "Bellerophon" is said to be Greek for "the destroyer of Beller," but this Beller remains, for the most part, unidentified. I would propose that the name Bellerophon is an extra-Biblical title of Joshua as "the destroyer of Bel," Bel being the chief god of the Amorites, the main enemy of Joshua during the conquest of Canaan. Unfortunately not a lot of archaeological evidence has come down to us from those Scriptural Amorites of Canaan, consequently we don't know much about them. However, there does seem to be a lot of information that has survived from Hammurabi's Amorites of Babylon. (These are referred to, by many modern scholars, because of their language, as the "Canaanites" of Babylon.) It is from these Amorites of Babylon, that we learn about their worship of Bel, also known as Marduk or under the combination name of Bel-Marduk, whose symbolic beast, or totem, was a very Chimera looking brute. Now, the Amorites did not call their national emblem, the symbol of their chief god, a Chimera, (they called it the "Mushussu,") and it wasn't exactly the same creature. It was however a three way beast with a lion at the front and a serpent at the tail, but it had eagle wings instead of goats legs. However, scholars who have studied the matter, having read descriptions of it and having seen the thing on ancient monuments, have called it a Chimera because that is what it reminded them of.



Furthermore the method by which Bellerophon, with divine aid, had accomplished this mission, namely, by pelting the Chimera from above with artillery, is suspiciously like the way that the scriptures say Joshua, with heavenly assistance, was able to defeat the Amorites, for they too were miraculously pelted to death with projectiles from the heavens (a unique motif, particular to Bellerophon amongst the Greeks, and to Joshua amongst the Israelites). It was the Greeks who named the mythical fire breathing beast, a tripartite composite monster, made up of a lion, a goat, and a serpent, the "Chimera." This name is easily a mere transliteration of the usual name for the Amorites that is attested to in dozens of ancient texts under the form, "Amurru." With this in mind, both the name Bellerophon and his foremost task, the destruction of the Chimera, are plausibly referring to the principal feat of Joshua, who defeated the Amurru, and thus, symbolically, was the destroyer of Bel.



Joshua did not defeat the Amorites in only one miraculous battle and there were many enemies of the Hebrews spread all over the land, called by many different names. In fact, the specific battle during which the stones fell from the sky was against the king of Salem, King Adonizedek, and his allies. Now, since the city of Salem, an ancient name for the city of Jerusalem, was also called "Jebus," these "Salemites" could also be referred to as "Jebusites," not to mention the less specific Scriptural term "Amorites." Bellerophon's name and the idea that he killed the "Chimera," were no doubt, a reflection of the accumulated deeds of Joshua, namely, the overthrow of the "Amurru," in only a general way. There were other stories about the wars of Bellerophon that were a bit more particular. Bellerophon was also said to have gone up against the "Solymi" and their allies the Amazons. There should be no doubt, in the reader's mind by now, as to the identity of these "Solymi." They were obviously the Jebusites of "Salem." The very capable mythologist Robert Graves, while not suspecting any association between Bellerophon and Joshua, does venture to speculate that the Solymi, whom he calls, "the Solymians," were named for the same "sun god" that the pre Davidic city of Jerusalem was named after. Not bad for a rank supposition, but in the light of all the evidence for associating Bellerophon with Joshua, the link between the Solymi and the Salemites becomes much more direct.



As we have said, these Salemites were the particular Amorites who met their demise as a result of their being miraculously rained upon by boulders from the sky, once again showing the Scriptural Salemites to be the Solymi of the Greek myths, for it is said that Bellerophon was able to defeat the Solymi by using his far famed military tactic of flying over them and dropping huge stones upon their heads. This leaves us to identify the allies of the Solymi, the Amazons.



For more articles by John R. Salverda on the Hebraic Connections of Greek Mythology, see:

"Helleno-Yishurin. The Hebrew Origin of Greek Legends"

Abraham in Greek Mythology



by John R. Salverda

[The AMAIC considers the Middle East – West comparisons of John R. Salverda as interesting, with some of them we think being very likely. But we do not necessarily agree with all of the following]  

Abraham and the Minyan Athamas





Contents:



Minyans, Kurds, Armenians, and UR.

Thessalians.

Abraham and the Ram-Lamb?

The Almost-Consummated Sacrifice of the Son!

Competing Wives and their Allegorical Significance.

Isaac and the Mountain.

Different Hebrew Traditions Coalesced in Greek Mythology.



Minyans, Kurds, Armenians, and UR





The Athamas of Greek Mythology, as the King of Orchomenus a city founded by Minyas, was a well known Minyan. Abraham and his family were said to have been from Ur of the Chaldees. These two statements fit together because the Minyans were the Armenians (Ur-Manneans indicating those from the mountains [ur] of Minni), and the Armenians of Urartu were famously known as the Chaldians of Urartu. This is the land where Noahs ark landed, and the People of Noahs land, could build ships, (The Greek word for ship, is plausibly derived from the very name of Noah, naus) and they were very colonial. The Minni, named in connection with Ararat, by Jeremiah (from Jeremiah 51:27), are the same People as those mentioned by Josephus (quoting Nicolaus of Damascus), who uses the Greek form Minyas, (Antiquities i. I. 6,) to indicate a place in Armenia, the country where Noahs Ark landed. Thus there are fairly convincing connections between the Greek, Minyas, and the Armenians. Historians know well these People and call them the Manneans, or the kingdom of Van. This group lived in the mountains, (alternately known as, the Gordyan or Cordyaean mountains by Berosus, and as, the Chaldean mountains by Xenophon,) where Noahs ark landed. The Chaldeans are the descendants of Noahs grandson, Arpachshad. Abraham was one of these Chaldeans. These three closely related peoples, the Armenians, the Hebrews, and the Minyans, knew about each others existence, and they kept in touch in ancient times. Since the Manneans, are known to have been largely composed of Hurrians it seems reasonable to assume that the Hurrians were so called after Ur, the homeland of Abraham (The pre-Canaan home of Abraham, the city of Haran, named for Abrahams brother, and the surrounding quod-city area, including the cities of Nahor, named for either Abrahams brother or his grandfather, Pethor the home of Balaam, and Carchemish were also settled, according to modern archaeologists, by the Hurrians.). The theory that Abraham came from the city of Ur in Sumer dies slowly, but surely. As has been argued by Prof. Cyrus Gordon and others, Abraham was a nomadic herdsman, he was from the mountains of Noah, the ship builder, with specialized abilities like knot tying for the rigging of canvas, astral navigation for nomadic travels, and he had herds for wealth, (goats and sheep, animals that are specialized for the mountains,) he was not a city dwelling farmer, like the Sumerians, and obviously did not come from the urban centers of the plains of Shinar.





Thessalians

Trading merchandise, stories, and perhaps even adventurous tourism, would go between Greece and the Minyans by way of a seafaring, horse breeding People, who also had ties to the Minyan culture called, the Thekel, (the Thekelwesh, of the Sea Peoples,) more familiarly known as, the Thessalians or Thessalonians, a name they adopted about 825 BC. The People of Thessaly, were from the Levant, and were a branch of the Aeolians, the sons of Aeolus, (plausibly from Eloah [god], with the usual Greek suffix, -us appended) the Hebrews knew of these People and called them, the sons of Elishah. The Aeolians traded extensively with the people of the land of Canaan, (see Ezekiel 27:9-25) and, gray colored, Minyan ware, (as it is so called by modern archaeologists who find it scattered throughout northern Greece and southern Thrace from the time preceding the Troy VI period), likely came from the Maneans down through the Mitanni to the coastal cities on the Cyprus corner of the Mediterranean sea, from there the goods were carried over sea by the Aeolians of Thessaly, to northern Greece and Thrace. The Thessalians, as is evidenced by the story of the Argonautica (often referred to as the Minyan tale), were also familiar with another oversea route, between Armenia and Greece, through the Black Sea.





Abraham and the Ram-Lamb?

The Minyans, as Hurrians from Armenia, knew well the story of the Hebrew, Abraham, they called him Athamas. The Minyans most likely got their, only slightly tainted, version of the story, brought over by migrants from the area of Carchemish and therefore named its Greek colony at the city of Orchomenus (a plausible transliteration, and supposed by some to have been founded by Athamas himself) after the place. Even a cursory comparison of the two supposedly unrelated stories displays them as remarkably coincidental. Athamas began a movement toward, the abolition of, that age old and wide spread, religious concept, human sacrifice (as well as its companion tradition, cannibalism). Although we praise Abraham for his role in this abolition, it seems that some factions (mainly, the Achaeans) of the ancient Greeks, were of a different opinion. They considered their Abrahamic equivalent Athamas, and his descendants as well, to be cursed for their part in the civilizing of mankind (See Herodotus 7. 197 Athamas the son of Aeolus contrived death for Phrixus, having taken counsel with Ino, and after this how by command of an oracle the Achaeans propose to his descendants the following tasks to be performed: whosoever is the eldest of this race, he is brought forth to the sacrifice. This is done to the descendants of Kytissoros the son of Phrixus, because, he brought the wrath of the gods upon his own descendants.). In both cases, whether Scripture or myth, the abolition of human sacrifice in favor of animal sacrifice (the ram) is the obvious message of the story. Pausanias describes a statue depicting the sacrifice of this ram; "There is also a statue of Phrixus the son of Athamas carried ashore to the Colchians by the ram. Having sacrificed the animal, he has cut out the thighs in accordance with Greek custom and is watching them as they burn." (Pausanias, Description of Greece 1. 24. 2) Take note of the Greek custom of cutting out the thighs as if to make the sacrifice Kosher. There is no doubt in my mind as to where they got such a notion.





The Almost-Consummated Sacrifice of the Son!

Intricate details of Abrahams life appear as parts of the Greek myth as well, I cant think of another pair, of ancient stories which are so similar, and yet so seldom compared! Both Abraham and Athamas were divinely commanded to sacrifice, each their own son, with a knife on a mountain top, and each was about to comply when the child was saved, each by the miraculous appearance of a ram. The ram was considered to have been supplied by God, and was said to have been acceptable to Him as a replacement sacrifice instead of the son of man. ... The symbol of the sacrificed lamb of god, appears in the Greek Myth, complete with an association to the Hebrew story of the garden of Eden, for the quest of the Argonauts, like the Biblical quest of all mankind, hangs in (nailed to) a tree, in a sacred grove, there is a serpent, and the way is guarded. Phrixos sacrificed the golden-fleeced ram to Zeus Phyxios, but gave its fleece to Aetes, who nailed it to an oak tree in a grove of Ares." (See Pseudo-Apollodorus, Bibliotheca 1. 80) "The fleece in Colchis and the apples of the Hesperides, since they seemed to be of gold, two serpents that never slept guarded and claimed as their own." (Philostratus the Elder, Imagines 2. 17. 6) This association begs for the conclusion that these Greeks had some knowledge about the Hebrew concept of the original sin as well as the hopeful promise of the Messiah. No doubt they did, for they knew many intricate details of the Hebrew story, including the sophisticated religious symbolism inherent in the parable of Abrahams two wives.





Competing Wives and their Allegorical Significance.

Both Abraham, and Athamas, are said to have had a pair of competing wives each of whom were obvious allegories of differing religious concepts. Offspring was gotten from each of the wives, and the quarrel concerned, whose offspring, and their attending religious concept, would be favored, this is true in both stories. Ino is the Greek equivalent of Hagar from the Hebrew story, while Nephele is the counterpart of Sarah. Consider the Ino, Hagar identification first; The Greeks considered Ino to be the loser of the wifely quarrel, she was exiled and had to flee from her family home, with her half dead child in her arms, (Gen. 21:14,15) to the point of her death, when god intervened, granting Ino powerful miraculous abilities over water, thus saving the lives of Ino and her son Melicertes and appointing them to become great religious icons among the People who lived in the land of her exile, which we are told in the myth, was Corinth in Greece. Except for the location and names, all of these motifs are straight from the life of Hagar, who was looked upon as symbolic of earthly Zion, the covenant with slavery and death (Gal. 4 :22-31).



On the other hand, Sarah was symbolic of freedom, the Heavenly Zion, the wife of God (also in Gal. 4 :22-31). Now, Consider the identification of Nephele with Sarah; Nephele was created as a duplicate of Hera, the heavenly wife of god, "Zeus formed a figure of Hera out of cloud (Nephele) (Diodorus Siculus, Library of History 4. 69. 4) "a Cloud (Nephele)? its form was like the supreme celestial goddess, the daughter of Kronos. The hands of Zeus set it as a trap for him, a beautiful misery (Pindar, Pythian Ode 2. 32 ff). Zeus fashioned a Cloud (Nephele) to look like Hera (Pseudo-Apollodorus, Bibliotheca E1. 20). Hers were the favored offspring, who were carried off to the Egyptian land, (That Colchis [in the Caucasus] was an Egyptian land we learn from Herodotus who says:

There can be no doubt that the Colchians are an Egyptian race. Before I heard any mention of the fact from others, I had remarked it myself. After the thought had struck me, I made inquiries on the subject both in Colchis and in Egypt, and I found that the Colchians had a more distinct recollection of the Egyptians, than the Egyptians had of them. Still the Egyptians said that they believed the Colchians to be descended from the [Egyptian] army of Sesostris (Herodotus Histories 2.104) from which they eventually had a miraculous epic deliverance (Argonautica).



Isaac and the Mountain.



On the day of Isaac's being weaned, Ishmael was caught taunting of Isaac over heirship. (Gen. 21 :8, 9) ... Phrixus, the fugitive, was the son of Nephele. The Greek myth likewise connects the conflict between the heirs with the exile to the Egyptian land and eventual deliverance of Phrixus, when his bones and descendants are brought back home with the Argonauts. Phrixus sacrificed the ram at its own suggestion to Zeus alone, because he is the god of fugitives;" (Apollonius Rhodius, Argonautica 2. 1141 ff) See how Apollonius in writing the Argonautica looks upon the sacrifice of the ram to be to the one god, Zeus alone, and further note the phrase the god of fugitives as it may relate to the god of Abram who was a stranger in the lands of Canaan and Egypt and the eventual epic deliverance of Israel. If you study the story of Athamas you will come across the term, "Laphystius" which is a surname of Zeus and is associated with the mountain upon which Athamas nearly sacrificed his son, it is derived from the verb "laphussein", meaning "to flee" and is apparently synonymous with the similarly used term "Phyxius" (Paus. i. 24. 2, ix. 34. 4.). Phyzius means "the god who protects fugitives" and occurs as a title of Zeus that is often used for him in Thessaly (Schol. ad Apollon. Rhod. ii. 1147, iv. 699; Paus. ii. 21. 3, iii. 17. 8).

And he said unto Abram, Know of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve them; and they shall afflict them four hundred years (Gen 15:13).



Different Hebrew Traditions Coalesced in Greek Mythology.



There was a famous famine in the land of Athamas that precipitated and instigated the sacrifice and exile of his offspring Phrixus. "The oracle prophesied an end to the dearth if Phrixos were to be sacrificed to Zeus. When Athamas heard this and was pressured by the joint efforts of the inhabitants, he had Phrixos placed on the altar. (See Pseudo-Apollodorus, Bibliotheca 1. 80) Now, it was a famine, or a dearth as Pseudo-Apollodorus would have called it, that drove Israel into the Egyptian realm and placed them under the suzerainty of the son of the sun god. However there must have been some confusion among the Greek mythographers concerning the chronology of the events for they seem to have compressed three generations of Hebrew history (those of Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph), into one generation (that of Phrixus) of Greek mythology. Phrixus is the Minyan version of Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph, all rolled into one. As Isaac he is almost offered up as a sacrifice by his father on a mountain top, but is saved at the last minute by the miraculous appearance of a ram. As Jacob he goes off to the Egyptian land where he stays until the end of his life. In each case his descendants returned and his bones are carried back home for burial (this is also true of Joseph). As Joseph, Phrixus has an episode with the wife of Cretheus. Cretheus had Demodice as wife; others name her Biadice. Moved by the beauty of Phrixus, son of Athamas, she fell in love with him, and could not obtain from him favor in return; so, driven by necessity, she accused him to Cretheus, saying that he had attacked her, and many similar things that women say (Hyginus Astronomica 2.20). This is an obvious doublet of the same story told about Joseph with the wife of Potiphar. Later Phrixus was given the daughter of the son of Helios (the same Helios whom the Greeks associated with the Egyptian city of Heliopolis) to wed, just as Joseph was wed to the daughter of the High Priest at Heliopolis. Aeetes, the son of Helios received him (Phrixus) and gave him Khalkiope, one of his daughters (See Pseudo-Apollodorus, Bibliotheca 1. 80). Famines played an important role in the Hebrew story as well. And there was a famine in the land: and Abram went down into Egypt to sojourn there; for the famine was grievous in the land. (Gen 12:10) and again, And there was a famine in the land, beside the first famine that was in the days of Abraham. And Isaac went unto Abimelech king of the Philistines unto Gerar. (Gen 26:1). Evidently the famine in the days of Abram was so well known that it had to be distinguished from the later famine of Isaac's time. The grievous famine of Abram drove him into the land of Egypt, just as the later famine had done in the days of his descendants Jacob and Joseph. Perhaps it was this feature, the fact that both famines had driven the Hebrews, as fugitives or sojourners, into the land of Egypt, that had mislead the Greeks into combining the two events. Of course, the story of the epic deliverance, in one instance the Exodus and in the other the Argonautica, would serve as the continuation and conclusion in both cases.



It truly stretches credulity to imagine that these two widely spread versions of apparently the same story could have been written by two different peoples, the Greeks and the Hebrews, without awareness of one another, as if by instinct. The Greeks who wrote of Athamas obviously had, not only passing, but intricate knowledge, not only of the story, but much of the theology connected to the history of the Hebrew Abraham.



--



-John R. Salverda







For more articles by John R. Salverda on the Hebraic Connections of Greek Mythology, see:

"Helleno-Yishurin. The Hebrew Origin of Greek Legends"