Jesus Christ most aptly described as a “Lamb”

“Paul states, “Our paschal lamb, Christ, has been sacrificed” (1 Corinthians 5:7). Jesus' death on the cross was a passover from death to life for himself and for all of us. By his blood we are saved from death. Jesus made it possible for us to break out of the slavery of sin and death. He gave us the hope of reaching our promised land, heaven”. Loyola Press Jesus the Lamb of God At Loyola Press we read: https://www.loyolapress.com/catholic-resources/scripture-and-tradition/jesus-and-the-new-testament/who-do-you-say-that-i-am-names-for-jesus/jesus-the-lamb-of-god/ Have you ever had a lamb cake as part of your Easter celebration? Have you seen art that shows a lamb holding a triumphant banner? The lamb as a symbol for Christ has its roots in the Old Testament. For centuries people worshipped God by sacrificing animals. They killed them and offered them to God. For the Jews a lamb was the main animal of sacrifice. In the Temple a lamb was offered every day. The sacrifice of a lamb also played an important part in the Exodus. In the biblical story of the Exodus, God led the Israelites out of Egypt, where they were slaves, and into the promised land. On the night God's people were to depart, the firstborn in all the Egyptian families died. The firstborn of the Israelites were saved because God had instructed them to kill a lamb or goat and mark their doorposts with its blood. The angel of death then knew to pass over those houses. The Israelites ate the lamb in a meal before they left. The lamb was to have no blemish, and none of its bones were to be broken. To this day the Jews remember this night with the Feast of Passover. On this day they share a special meal called a Seder meal. The shank of a lamb is one item on the Seder plate. Jesus is called the lamb of God because he is the perfect sacrifice offered to God. In 1 Peter 1:18-19 we are told, “You were ransomed . . . not with perishable things like silver or gold but with the precious blood of Christ as of a spotless unblemished lamb.” A prophecy about the Messiah states, “Though he was harshly treated, he submitted and opened not his mouth; Like a lamb led to the slaughter” (Isaiah 53:7). After Jesus' crucifixion, soldiers did not break his legs to kill him because he was already dead. Like the Passover lamb, his bones were unbroken. Paul states, “Our paschal lamb, Christ, has been sacrificed” (1 Corinthians 5:7). Jesus' death on the cross was a passover from death to life for himself and for all of us. By his blood we are saved from death. Jesus made it possible for us to break out of the slavery of sin and death. He gave us the hope of reaching our promised land, heaven. The Gospel of John clearly compares Jesus to the Passover lamb by saying that Jesus was crucified the same day that the Passover lambs were being killed in the Temple (John 19:31). In the Gospel of John it was John the Baptist who gave Jesus the title Lamb of God (John 1:29). The Book of Revelation speaks of the Lamb at least 29 times. In a vision John sees a lamb. Four living creatures and 24 elders fall before the Lamb and sing praise because he purchased all people with his blood (Revelation 5:9). † Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world, have mercy on us! † Response to a Jewish reader who wrote: “Jesus was never a lamb”.

Israeli archaeologists can never destroy the wise King Solomon

by Damien F. Mackey “Now Solomon. I think I destroyed Solomon, so to speak. Sorry for that!” Israel Finkelstein Reference is made in El Amarna [EA] letters 74 and 290 to a place-name that professor Julius Lewy read as Bet Shulmanu - House (or Sanctuary) of Shulman (“The Sulman Temple in Jerusalem”, Journal of Biblical Literature LIX (1940), pp. 519 ff.). EA 290 was written by the King of Urusalim, Abdi-Hiba, who had to be, according to the conventional chronology, a C14th BC pagan ruler of what we know as Jerusalem. This view of Abdi-Hiba is summed up in the Wikipedia article, “Abdi-Heba”: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdi-Heba Abdi-Heba (Abdi-Kheba, Abdi-Hepat, or Abdi-Hebat) was a local chieftain of Jerusalem during the Amarna period (mid-1330s BC). Abdi-Heba's name can be translated as "servant of Hebat", a Hurrian goddess. Whether Abdi-Heba was himself of Hurrian descent is unknown, as is the relationship between the general populace of pre-Israelite Jerusalem (called, several centuries later, Jebusites in the Bible) and the Hurrians. Egyptian documents have him deny he was a ḫazānu and assert he is a soldier (we'w), the implication being he was the son of a local chief sent to Egypt to receive military training there.[1] Also unknown is whether he was part of a dynasty that governed Jerusalem or whether he was put on the throne by the Egyptians. Abdi-Heba himself notes that he holds his position not through his parental lineage but by the grace of Pharaoh, but this might be flattery rather than an accurate representation of the situation. …. [End of quote] From a revisionist perspective, this is all quite incorrect. Dr. Immanuel Velikovsky had argued most compellingly in his Ages in Chaos, I (1952) and Oedipus and Ikhnaton (1960), that the EA era actually belonged to, not the C14th BC, but the C9th BC era of Israel’s Divided Kingdom. And it is from such a revised perspective that Dr. Velikovsky was able to make this thrilling comment about professor Lewy’s reading: [http://www.varchive.org/ce/sultemp.htm] The Šulmán Temple in Jerusalem …. From a certain passage in letter No. 290, written by the king of Jerusalem to the Pharaoh, Lewy concluded that this city was known at that time also by the name “Temple of Šulmán.” Actually, Lewy read the ideogram that had much puzzled the researchers before him. …. After complaining that the land was falling to the invading bands (habiru), the king of Jerusalem wrote: “. . . and now, in addition, the capital of the country of Jerusalem — its name is Bit Šulmáni —, the king’s city, has broken away . . .”…. Beth Šulmán in Hebrew, as Professor Lewy correctly translated, is Temple of Šulmán. But, of course, writing in 1940, Lewy could not surmise that the edifice was the Temple of Solomon and therefore made the supposition that it was a place of worship (in Canaanite times) of a god found in Akkadian sources as Shelmi, Shulmanu, or Salamu. The correction of the reading of Knudtzon (who was uncertain of his reading) fits well with the chronological reconstruction of the period. In Ages in Chaos (chapters vi-viii) I deal with the el-Amarna letters; there it is shown that the king of Jerusalem whose name is variously read Ebed-Tov, Abdi-Hiba, etc. was King Jehoshaphat (ninth century). It was only to be expected that there would be in some of his letters a reference to the Temple of Solomon. Also, in el-Amarna letter No. 74, the king of Damascus, inciting his subordinate sheiks to attack the king of Jerusalem, commanded them to “assemble in the Temple of Šulmán.” [End of quote] Dr. Velikovsky’s identification of the idolatrous Abdi-Hiba of Urusalim with the extremely pious King Jehoshaphat of Judah needed the slight modification, as provided by Peter James, that Abdi-Hiba was actually King Jehoshaphat’s evil son, Jehoram - a modification that I fully supported in my article: King Abdi-Hiba of Jerusalem Locked in as a ‘Pillar’ of Revised History (3) King Abdi-Hiba of Jerusalem Locked in as a ‘Pillar’ of Revised History | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu Apart from that, though, the EA evidence completely favoured Velikovsky’s revision, as he himself hastened to point out (op. cit., ibid.): It was surprising to find in the el-Amarna letters written in the fourteenth century that the capital of the land was already known then as Jerusalem (Urusalim) and not, as the Bible claimed for the pre-Conquest period, Jebus or Salem. …. Now, in addition, it was found that the city had a temple of Šulmán in it and that the structure was of such importance that its name had been used occasionally for denoting the city itself. (Considering the eminence of the edifice, “the house which king Solomon built for the Lord” …. this was only natural.) Yet after the conquest by the Israelites under Joshua ben-Nun, the Temple of Šulmán was not heard of. Lewy wrote: “Aside from proving the existence of a Šulmán temple in Jerusalem in the first part of the 14th century B.C., this statement of the ruler of the region leaves no doubt that the city was then known not only as Jerusalem, but also as Bet Šulmán.”—“It is significant that it is only this name [Jerusalem] that reappears after the end of the occupation of the city by the Jebusites, which the Šulmán temple, in all probability, did not survive.” [End of quote] The conventional system has the habit of throwing up such “surprising” historical anomalies! Dr. Velikovsky continues here: The late Professor W. F. Albright advised me that Lewy’s interpretation cannot be accepted because Šulmán has no sign of divinity accompanying it, as would be proper if it were the name of a god. But this only strengthens my interpretation that the temple of Šulmán means Temple of Solomon. In the Hebrew Bible the king’s name has no terminal “n”. But in the Septuagint — the oldest translation of the Old Testament — the king’s name is written with a terminal “n”; the Septuagint dates from the third century before the present era. Thus it antedates the extant texts of the Old Testament, the Dead Sea Scrolls not excluded. Solomon built his Temple in the tenth century. In a letter written from Jerusalem in the next (ninth) century, Solomon’s Temple stood a good chance of being mentioned; and so it was. [End of quote] P. Friedman, writing for a British revisionist journal, would later insist upon another necessary modification of the Velikovskian thesis. The description, “Temple of Solomon”, he explained (in “The Temple in Jerusalem?” SIS Review III:1 (Summer 1978), pp.7-8), is in fact a modern English rendition which is never actually found in the Hebrew as used in the Old Testament. There, King Solomon’s Temple is constantly referred to as the “House of Yahweh” or, simply, the “House of the Lord”. Friedman also drew attention to the fact that, in Assyrian records, the Kingdom of Israel is called the “House of Omri” in deference to Omri’s dynasty. He therefore suggested that Bet Shulman should, in like manner, be understood to refer to the Kingdom of Judah in deference to King Solomon’s dynasty (p. 8): “‘House of Solomon’ meant not merely the capital [i.e., Jerusalem], but the whole kingdom of Judah, approaching even more closely the use of ‘House of Omri’ for the kingdom of Israel”. Another possible interpretation of the phrase Bet Shulman is, as S. Dyen would later argue, that it should be understood literally as “the House”, that is the Palace, of King Solomon (“The House of Solomon”, KRONOS VIII:2 (Winter 1983), p. 88). The apparent reference back in time to his great (x 3) grandfather, King Solomon, by Abdi-hiba/Jehoram of Urusalim/Jerusalem – [e.g., Matthew 1:7-8: Solomon the father of Rehoboam, Rehoboam the father of Abijah, Abijah the father of Asa, Asa the father of Jehoshaphat, Jehoshaphat the father of Jehoram …], serves to vindicate the Old Testament against the reckless biblical minimizing of the likes of Israeli archaeologist, Israel Finkelstein. He, as I have previously noted: …. is quoted as saying in … a … National Geographic article, “Kings of Controversy” by Robert Draper (David and Solomon, December 2010, p. 85): “Now Solomon. I think I destroyed Solomon, so to speak. Sorry for that!” What Finkelstein ought to be “sorry” for, however, is not the wise King Solomon – who continues to exist as a real historical and archaeological entity, despite the confused utterances of the current crop of Israeli archaeologists – but for Finkelstein’s own folly in clinging to a hopelessly out-dated and bankrupt archaeological system that has caused him to point every time to the wrong stratigraphical level for Israel’s Old Testament history (e.g. Exodus/Conquest; David and Solomon; Queen of Sheba). …. The effects of this biblical minimalising have been so complete that an Egyptian writer, Doaa El Shereef, can now write an extensive article based upon Israeli mass archaeological error: Israeli Archaeologists Admit that: There is No Temple of Solomon (3) Israeli Archaeologists Admit that: There is No Temple of Solomon | Doaa El Shereef - Academia.edu in which she effectively erases each and every major phase of Old Testament history.

Was this the original ‘Famine Stela’?

by Damien F. Mackey “Almost two millennia later, a fairly similar story would be told on the famous “Famine Stela” about the pharaoh Djoser’s making lavish donations to the temple of Khnum on Elephantine in order to terminate the seven years’ famine”. Arkadiy Demidchik Arkadiy Demidchik, member of Saint-Petersburg State University, Oriental Faculty, has picked up what he calls “a fairly similar story” between the famous Ptolemaïc Famine Stela on Sehel Island and a far more ancient document of Wahankh Intef and Nakht-Nebtepnefer Intef of Egypt’s so-called Eleventh Dynasty (wrongly dated here): A ‘Famine Stela’ Episode under the Early XIth Dynasty https://www.academia.edu/36620751/A_Famine_Stela_Episode_under_the_Early_XIth_Dynasty This is what Arkadiy Demidchik has written about it: On the orders of the early Xlth dynasty kings Wahankh Intef and Nakht-Nebtepnefer Intef, the chapels for the gods Satet and Khnum on Elep[h]antine were constructed with stone doorjambs, lintels, columns, etc. This is the oldest example of pharaohs’ monumental stone building for gods in provincial temples. What was the incentive for this grand and labor-intensive innovation in the troubled times when the young Theban monarchy controlled only a smaller part of Egypt? Careful scrutiny of the inscriptions from the chapels shows that Khnum was invoked there first and foremost as the lord of the sources of the Upper Egyptian inundation, believed to be situated at the First Cataract. Together with a good number of other texts examined in the paper, this indicates that the Intefs’ stone building project on Elephantine was undertaken in order to deliver their Theban kingdom from too low or unseasonable Nile floods which resulted in poor harvests. Almost two millennia later, a fairly similar story would be told on the famous “Famine Stela” about the pharaoh Djoser’s making lavish donations to the temple of Khnum on Elephantine in order to terminate the seven years’ famine. The idea of K[h]num’s revelation to a king in a dream, which is said to have happened to Djoser, is also attested as early as in the XXth century BC. [End of quote] But this is not all. The same Arkadiy Demidchik has also been able to point to what he has called: A Northern Version of the “Famine Stela” Narrative? https://www.academia.edu/36620738/A_Northern_Version_of_the_Famine_Stela_Narrative Here he writes: According to the “historical” introduction to the royal decree to the “Famine Stela” on the island of Sehel, the king Djoser managed to cease the seven years’ famine only due to the discovery of the source of the Upper Egyptian inundation and its gods by the sage Imhotep. However, since the Egyptians usually distinguished also Lower Egyptian inundation, with its own source near Heliopolis, there must have existed a kind of “northern” version of the “Famine Stela” story with Imhotep’s discovering the Heliopolitan source, regulated by Atum with his entourage. As early as 1999 this was pointed out by O.D. Berlev. There are mentions of “7 years” when the inundation-Hapi did not come, of the “temple of Atum of Heliopolis” and its high priest Imhotep on British Museum hieratic papyrus fragment 1065, first read by J. Quack. Could this not be scraps of that “northern” version of the “Famine Stela” narrative? [End of quote] Clearly, we are in the time of the highly famed Imhotep (Third Dynasty), the biblical Joseph, son of Jacob, when there occurred a seven-year Famine (Genesis 41-47). In various articles, now, I have multi-identified this great sage of Egypt, who became, in fact, a quasi-Pharaoh. For one, he, not the Egyptian Pharaoh of the time, Horus Netjerikhet/Netjerihedjet (3rd/11th dynasties), was Djoser (Zoser). The name “Djoser” wrongly became attached later to Horus Netjerikhet. On this, see e.g. my article: Enigmatic Imhotep – did he really exist? https://www.academia.edu/120844277/Enigmatic_Imhotep_did_he_really_exist The oldest stone architecture is associated with Imhotep and the Step Pyramid. https://www.ancient-egypt-online.com/imhotep.html “[The Step Pyramid] was the first pyramid built, as well as the first structure of any kind of cut stone”. So, when I read above about (emphasis added): “Wahankh Intef and Nakht-Nebtepnefer Intef … the chapels for the gods Satet and Khnum on Elep[h]antine were constructed with stone doorjambs, lintels, columns, etc. This is the oldest example of pharaohs’ monumental stone building for gods in provincial temples”, I must begin to wonder if the two Egyptian names presented here, presumed to be pharaonic, must actually pertain to Imhotep himself under some of his many guises: Joseph, whose coat was of many colours, was a man of many names https://www.academia.edu/121428289/Joseph_whose_coat_was_of_many_colours_was_a_man_of_many_names In this article I came up with a plethora of potential historical identifications for the biblical Joseph. Thus: The multi-named Joseph From what we have just read, Joseph's names may include Imhotep; Khasekhemwy-Imhotep; Hetep-Khasekhemwy; Khasekhem; Sekhemkhet; Den (Dewen, Udimu); Khasti; Uenephes; Usaphais (Yusef); Zaphenath paneah; Ankhtifi; Bebi and perhaps also: Hemaka; Kheti From stark obscurity, the historical Joseph now abounds! And I suspect that this will not exhaust the potential list of Egyptian (also including some Greek) names for the biblical Joseph. With reference to that last statement, can we now enlarge our list to include those Eleventh Dynasty famine-related (perhaps) names above, Wahankh Intef and Nakht-Nebtepnefer Intef? The latter is poorly known, and I expect that these names would pertain to just the one person. The name Intef may well connect with Ankhtifi as an abbreviation of it. I have already written of this Ankhtifi as one acting as if he himself were the very Pharaoh of Egypt: Ankhtifi of ancient Egypt substituting for the king https://www.academia.edu/121998381/Ankhtifi_of_ancient_Egypt_substituting_for_the_king and: Egypt’s high official, Ankhtifi, outboasts even great Senenmut https://www.academia.edu/120059538/Egypt_s_high_official_Ankhtifi_outboasts_even_great_Senenmut Taking Intef (I-III) as a whole, we read the following most interesting information: https://ancientegyptonline.co.uk/intefiii/ …. [Intef] is also thought to be the father of Montuhotep II, who successfully reunited Egypt. This view is supported by a relief found at Wadi Shatt el-Rigal (near Gebel es-Silsila) and the decoration on a block of masonry in the temple of Montu at Tod which seems to depict Montuhotep II with three kings named Intef (Intef I, Intef II, and Intef III). However, it is also proposed by some that Montuhotep II was not related to Intef III, but wished to be associated with him to ensure his position as pharaoh. Now, Mentuhotep II Netjerihedjet is my Eleventh Dynasty Pharaoh of the Famine – he being the same as Horus Netjerikhet of the Third Dynasty. Just as the Eleventh Dynasty Intef was the supposed father of Mentuhotep II, so had I noted of the Third Dynasty Khasekhemwy that he is thought to have been the father of Horus Netjerikhet, adding: “Khasekhemwy, as Joseph-Imhotep, was indeed a “Father to Pharaoh” (Genesis 45:8)”. The Pharaoh, of course, was not the blood son of Joseph, “but”, as said above, he “wished to be associated with him”. It happened in antiquity that a powerful Vizier would be called “father”, as in the case of the wicked Haman - a non-Persian - in the Book of Esther (8:11): “[Haman] so completely enjoyed the goodwill that we extend to all nations that we regarded him as our father before whom all should bow down, and we proclaimed him to rank second in line to the royal throne”. Intef’s (so-called II) long floruit in Egypt is well suited to Joseph, who lived to be 110. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intef_II “Wahankh Intef II (also Inyotef II and Antef II) was the third ruler of the Eleventh Dynasty of Egypt during the First Intermediate Period. He reigned for almost fifty years from 2112 BC to 2063 BC.[2] …. …. After the death of the nomarch Ankhtifi, Intef was able to unite all the southern nomes down to the First Cataract. After this he clashed with his main rivals, the kings of Herakleopolis Magna for the possession of Abydos. The city changed hands several times, but Intef II was eventually victorious, extending his rule north to the thirteenth nome”. But what I am tentatively proposing is that Intef was this Ankhtifi. And that he was the biblical Joseph, whose coat of many colours matched his many colourful names and titles in ancient Egypt.

Joseph, whose coat was of many colours, was a man of many names

by Damien F. Mackey And, perhaps most telling of all, Manetho's Usaphais, a virtually perfect Greek transliteration of the Semitic name, Yusef (=Usaph-), or Joseph. Apparently in the search for the historical Joseph, as was the case with Moses, one will need to - in order to find him in all of his fulness - course through various of the old Egyptian dynasties, both Old Kingdom and so-called 'Middle' Kingdom. This is what I have come up with so far: Basically, Joseph was - as many are now thinking (see Internet and You Tube) - Imhotep of Egypt's Third Dynasty, who brilliantly served Horus Netjerikhet. But Imhotep, simply qua Imhotep, does not appear to be very well attested from contemporaneous records, so much so that some say he may never have existed, but may have been a later (say, Ramesside, or Ptolemaïc) fabrication. That problem can be nicely solved, I think, by recognising Imhotep as the Second Dynasty, or the Third Dynasty character, Khasekhemwy-Imhotep (variously Hetep-Khasekhemwy, Khasekhem, or Sekhemkhet). Of this Khasekhemwy, we read (Britannica) that "... he was the first to use extensive stone masonry". But, then, something similar is said again of Horus Den (Dewen, Udimu) of the First Dynasty. Thus, Nicolas Grimal (A History of Ancient Egypt, Blackwell, p. 53. My emphasis): "In the tomb built by Den at Abydos a granite pavement was found, the first known example of stone-built architecture, which until then had been exclusively of mud brick". And it is said, again, of Netjerikhet (ibid., p. 64): "... Netjerykhet ... is famed for having invented stone-built architecture with the help of his architect Imhotep ...". Very confusing! "... Den ... first known example of stone-built architecture ...". Khasekhemwy "... first to use extensive stone masonry". "... stone-built architecture [invented] with the help of ... Imhotep ...". Never mind, if - as I am proposing - Den, was Khasekhemwy, was Imhotep. Now, Den supposedly had a powerful Chancellor, Hemaka, who might likewise be considered as a potential candidate for Joseph (Wikipedia, article "Hemaka". My emphasis): One of Hemaka's titles was that of "seal-bearer of the King of Lower Egypt" ... effectively identifying him as chancellor and second in power only to the king. .... The tomb of Hemaka is larger than the king's own tomb, and for years was mistakenly thought as belonging to Den. But not a mistake if Hemaka was Den! And Den's wife, Merneith, may be the same as Ahaneth, a name almost identical to that of Joseph's wife, Aseneth (Asenath/Ahaneth) (Cf. Genesis 41:45, 50; 46:20). This Ahaneth must have been very important considering the large size of her tomb. Den's ruler may have been Horus Djer, which name recalls Horus Netjerikhet. Joseph's given Egyptian name, Zaphenath paneah, which biblical commentators generally find so difficult to interpret, I have connected in some of its elements, as a hypocoristicon, with Ankhtifi, a quasi-pharaonic like official (of no definitely fixed address) whose records boast of him as being 'unlike any man ever born', and who fails even to make any clear reference to his ruler. Ankhtifi, and the prolonged Famine of his time, with people cannibalising one another, I have linked to other similarly-described famines, of Bebi, and also the one at the time of Heqanakht. And I have then tentatively suggested a connection between the Famine personage, Bebi, and the Vizier of that same name serving Mentuhotep, so-called II, of the Eleventh Dynasty ('Middle' Kingdom). This powerful king, Mentuhotep, also had a Chancellor of Ankhtifi-like prominence and importance, Kheti. Previously I wrote on King and Chancellor pairings: Once again, as with Horus Netjerikhet and Imhotep, Saqqara ("Sakkara") takes centre stage. Den may here have been recording Horus Djer's Sed festival rather than his own. Similarly, Mentuhotep's quasi-pharaonic vizier, Kheti, will be prominent in the case of his Pharaoh's Sed festival, presumably as its organiser. So far, I have not even come to this Kheti, whose name may be a hypocoristicon of Sekhem-khet (= Zoser/Imhotep). In Djer/Hemaka; Djer/Den; and Mentuhotep/Kheti, we have, I believe, three variant combinations of the one King and Chancellor. And we have not even included here Netjerikhet/Imhotep. The multi-named Joseph From what we have just read, Joseph's names may include Imhotep; Khasekhemwy-Imhotep; Hetep-Khasekhemwy; Khasekhem; Sekhemkhet; Den (Dewen, Udimu); Khasti; Uenephes; Usaphais (Yusef); Zaphenath paneah; Ankhtifi; Bebi and perhaps also: Hemaka; Kheti From stark obscurity, the historical Joseph now abounds! And I suspect that this will not exhaust the potential list of Egyptian (also including some Greek) names for the biblical Joseph.

Antipas, a mysterious martyr in the Book of the Apocalypse

by Damien F. Mackey “To the angel of the church in Pergamum write: These are the words of him who has the sharp, double-edged sword. I know where you live—where Satan has his throne. Yet you remain true to my name. You did not renounce your faith in me, not even in the days of Antipas, my faithful witness, who was put to death in your city—where Satan lives”. A Revelation 2:12-13 Who was this “faithful witness” of Jesus Christ, Antipas? Nothing is known of Antipas except that he was an early Christian martyr associated with the city of Pergamum (Pergamon). Usually there will be a legend or two to help fill out an otherwise unknown person who had nevertheless been involved in something significant. But further reliable information about Antipas is about as scarce as hen’s teeth. https://antipas.net/about-us/who-is-antipas “While Antipas was martyred late in the lifetime of the Apostle John, precious little else is factually known about Antipas from respected historical sources”. Apparently we have to turn to late Orthodox Christian sources to get any further clues – which, however, may not necessarily be accurate (loc. cit.): However, traditions originating within the Eastern Orthodox Christian church, around and after CE 1,000, paint a fuller picture only if one can believe them as factual. The traditional (possibly fictional) Antipas was reputed to be the Bishop of the Christian church at Pergamos, and that he was martyred for his faith because of his consistent faithful witnessing in the face of all the satanic evil present there. When Antipas was advised: "Antipas, the whole world is against you!", Antipas reputedly replied: "Then I am against the whole world!" Antipas was supposedly roasted alive in a hollow life-size bull, which had a bonfire under its belly, because Antipas refused to renounce his faith in Christ Jesus. Antipas may have been the prophet Agabus The prophet Agabus of Acts 11:28 would be my selection for an alter ego of Antipas. Agabus, apparently from Jerusalem, ministered in the northern city of Antioch, as Antipas did in Pergamum, and he, likewise, was a contemporary of the Apostle John. Acts 11:27-30: During this time some prophets came down from Jerusalem to Antioch. One of them, named Agabus, stood up and through the Spirit predicted that a severe famine would spread over the entire Roman world. (This happened during the reign of Claudius.) The disciples, as each one was able, decided to provide help for the brothers and sisters living in Judea. This they did, sending their gift to the elders by Barnabas and Saul. There is extra-biblical evidence for severe famine in the time of the emperor Claudius. See, for instance: The Universal Famine under Claudius Kenneth Sperber Gapp The Harvard Theological Review Vol. 28, No. 4 (Oct., 1935), pp. 258-265 (8 pages) “They have power to shut up the heavens so that it will not rain during the time they are prophesying …” (Revelation 11:6). In Acts 21 we meet the prophet Agabus again, now in Caesarea, forewarning Paul of his own captivity and martyrdom (vv. 10-14): After we had been there a number of days, a prophet named Agabus came down from Judea. Coming over to us, he took Paul’s belt, tied his own hands and feet with it and said, “The Holy Spirit says, ‘In this way the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem will bind the owner of this belt and will hand him over to the Gentiles’.” When we heard this, we and the people there pleaded with Paul not to go up to Jerusalem. Then Paul answered, ‘Why are you weeping and breaking my heart? I am ready not only to be bound, but also to die in Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus’. When he would not be dissuaded, we gave up and said, ‘The Lord’s will be done’. Tradition may tell us a little more about Agabus – for instance, he was martyred, but, we are told, in Jerusalem: https://ucatholic.com/saints/agabus-the-prophet/ “Saint Agabus the Prophet, one of the seventy disciples, and martyr. The seventy disciples were chosen by the Lord to go before Him to preach the gospel. St. Agabus was with the twelve disciples in the upper room on the day of Pentecost, and he was filled with the Holy Spirit, the Comforter. He received the gift of prophecy, as the Acts of the Apostles tells us, “And as we stayed many days, a certain prophet named Agabus came down from Judea. When he had come to us, he took Paul’s belt, bound his own hands and feet, and said, ‘Thus says the Holy Spirit, so shall the Jews at Jerusalem bind the man who owns this belt, and deliver him into the hands of the Gentiles.'” (Acts 21:10-11) This prophecy was fulfilled. (Acts 21:17-36) He also prophesied about a famine on all the earth, and this was fulfilled during the time of Claudius Caesar, the Roman Emperor. (Acts 11:27-28) He preached the gospel together with the holy apostles. He went to many countries, teaching and converting many of the Jews and the Greeks to the knowledge of the Lord Christ. He sanctified them by the life-giving baptism. This moved the Jews of Jerusalem to arrest him, and they tortured him by beating him severely, and putting a rope around his neck, and they dragged him outside the city. They stoned him there until he gave up his pure spirit. At this moment, a light came down from heaven. Everyone saw it as a continuous column between his body and heaven. A Jewish woman saw it and said, “Truly this man was righteous.” She shouted in a loud voice, “I am a Christian and I believe in the God of this saint.” They stoned her also and she died and was buried with him in one tomb”. Regarding the unusual name, Abagus, we read this at: https://www.abarim-publications.com/Meaning/Agabus.html It's not wholly clear where the name Agabus comes from but it's most probably Semitic. The term agabus/agabos does not exist in Latin or Greek. There are very few Latin words that start with gab- and none that start with agab-. Likewise, in Greek there are no common words that start with γαβ- (gab-) or αγαβ- (agab-). Fortunately, there are quite a few Hebrew constructions that would transliterate into Greek in forms that would closely resemble our name. Most obviously, our name Agabus (Αγαβος, Agabos) may be a Hellenized version of the familiar name Hagabah (Αγαβα, Agaba), which in turn stems from the common noun חגב (hagab), grasshopper: Could Agabus even be a variant form of the phonetically like Antipas?: A[NT]IPAS A[G] ABUS

More stylistic anomalies for emperor Diocletian

“Diocletian’s enigmatic “renaissance of Hellenistic forms” … of the late 1st c. BC – instead of developing appropriate weapons to match the most advanced enemies of the 3rd/4th c. AD – still causes insurmountable difficulties of interpretation”. Gunnar Heinsohn See also my (Damien Mackey’s) article: Diocletian, rhyming with, or repeating, Augustus? (3) Diocletian, rhyming with, or repeating, Augustus? | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu Professor Gunnar Heinsohn wrote: https://www.scribd.com/document/655098736/Gunnar-060322-Jerusalem-First-Millennium-Ad-Heinsohn-September-2021-1 Modern scholars are amazed, and even rave, that “Diocletian’s bent was markedly conservative." They admire "Diocletian’s appeal to tradition”, his “distinctly old Roman concept” and his “insistent old Roman-ness” (all Williams 1985, 161 f.). They are convinced that Diocletian‘s “judicious blend of conservatism [...] was rooted in “Roman‘ moral values” of the Augustean period (Bowman 2005, 88). And yet, insanity is not excluded because Diocletian and his fellow rulers carried swords that had been out of fashion for more than 300 years. Their “bird head handles [...] appear on monuments of the Hellenistic period, such as the balustrade barriers (after 188 BC) of the Athena Shrine in Pergamon […] After that they are well represented at the beginning of the imperial era" of the late 1st century BC and the early 1st century AD“ (Miks 2007/I, 210). Assumed renaissance, after c. 300 years, of Late Hellenistic swords with bird head handles under DIOCLETIAN’S TETRARCHY in the late 3rd and early 4th c. AD [see already Heinsohn 2019 a]. 1st c. BC Greek/Eastern Roman sword with bird head handle (stele from Chalcedon [Louvre]) from the [Miks 2007/II, Table 291/A]. Eastern Roman swords with bird head handle from the porphyry tetrarch statue late 3rd/early 4th c. AD (originally Byzantium, today Venice) from the . [http://sword-site.com/thread/99/byzantine-swords?page=1] Diocletian even returned to the annual military draft of Roman citizens: “Conscription was again necessary” (Lo Cascio 2005, 173). Octavian’s original number of 25-33 legions (Pollard/Berry 2012, 213) was also reintroduced by the Tetrarchy. Diocletian’s enigmatic “renaissance of Hellenistic forms“ (Miks 2007/I, 211) of the late 1st c. BC – instead of developing appropriate weapons to match the most advanced enemies of the 3rd/4th c. AD – still causes insurmountable difficulties of interpretation. Perhaps, it is proposed, the repeated “promotion of traditional Italian-Greek design details [...] was meant to underline the eternal West-East (Greek-Persian) confrontation“ (Miks 2007/I, 463). Yet, no swords of Roman origin were found anywhere for 4th century common Roman soldiers (Miks 2007/I, 211). Archaeologists cannot tell from the excavated weapons whether they date from the 1st or the 4th c. AD. But if Diocletian, indeed, went into battle with outmoded weapons he must have been out of his mind. However, if he was, as many sources show, a concerned and even outstanding general, the aberrations could rather lie with us than with him. After all, Diocletian had no idea that he began a “Dominate” in the 3rd/4th c. AD after a “Principate’s” start in the 1st c. BC/1st c. AD. The term “Dominate” was created by Theodor Mommsen (1817-1903; Bleicken 1978). But wait, Jerusalem's archaeologists might interject, Diocletian was by no means insane but could perform miracles like no one else. For a large peristyle villa of his time in the City of David not only has the three-century outdated style of Late Hellenism but also stands stratigraphically directly, i.e. without layers for the 300 years in between, on a house of the Hasmonean period (140-37 BC). But why do they not date the villa to the 1st c. AD? Like most scholars, they believe that dating by coins is a scientific method. Moreover, this method of dating is ingeniously simple. All you have to do is open a coin catalog and write the date found there in your excavation report: “The scores of coins found buried under the collapse point to its actual date of destruction, early in the second half of the fourth century CE” (Ben-Ami/Tchekhanovets 2013). How these dates get into the catalogs, they do not have to care. That is the work of specialists who have been doing it for centuries. One can trust them blindly. And every educated person knows Diocletian's obsession with Late Hellenistic and early imperial fashion. With the emperor, his co-rulers and successors, i.e. the entire timespan from the 290s to 360 AD, had to be placed some 300 years earlier. It worked perfectly from the British Isles to Egypt and Israel. There have never been any complaints. All architects and craftsmen must have obeyed to the word. Through never ending miracles across thousands of kilometers they achieved perfect replications down to the chemical composition of paints and glass tesserae. The three-century ‘younger’ objects perfectly match unquestionable items from Late Hellenism. Anyone who does not immediately believe this is leaving the context of accepted science. ….

Annas slips seamlessly into the priestly robe of John Hyrcanus

by Damien F. Mackey “The tale in Josephus of "Athronges" and his brothers, the priest-shepherds of Migdol Eder, and the birth of Our Lord in Bethlehem are entirely connected, thank you. I also appreciate your work when you identify John Hyrcanus and the High Priest Annas, also, resolved a question in my mind with that as well”. A Reader My most recent exchange with a reader has been this one, concerning my radical theory that the Maccabean and Herodian eras had occurred at the same time: Dear Mr Damien Mackey, I have been reading your works for quite some time, especially with your merger of the Maccabean and Herodian periods. I believe that if you are correct, and I believe that you are, Christ and the Holy Family were central to the resistance of the Maccabees to the God fighting Selucid Empire. …. Damien Mackey You mirror my thoughts here …. [name given here]. Have you read this one?: "Religious war waging in Judah during the Infancy of Jesus" https://www.academia.edu/107036451/Religious_war_raging_in_Judah_during_the_Infancy_of_Jesus …. And this one?: "Shepherds of Bethlehem and the five Maccabees" https://www.academia.edu/111517720/Shepherds_of_Bethlehem_and_the_five_Maccabees …. Absolutely Mr Mackey, the tale in Josephus of " Athronges" and his brothers, the priest-shepherds of Migdol Eder, and the birth of Our Lord in Bethlehem are entirely connected, thank you. I also appreciate your work when you identify John Hyrcanus and the High Priest Annas, also, resolved a question in my mind with that as well. You may then be aware in the Josippon and elsewhere if I remember correctly, that the Romans explicitly are said to have destroyed Jerusalem and the Temple out of revenge for Christ's death: it only makes sense if in context of the treaty between the Romans and the Maccabees. Thanks again sir! …. Damien Mackey Not aware of having identified "John Hyrcanus and the High Priest Annas" anywhere …. I'd like to know more about it, though. …. My apologies Mr Mackey, I can't seem to find where I thought I saw that, perhaps a mistake on my part. In any case, I find your work brilliant, I have Velikovsky's " Ages in Chaos" series, but your insights as a Christian open up history even better in my opinion. I'm interested to see how the timeline is coming together, for sure! Anyway God bless you and your endeavors. …. …. Was it this, if I'm reading it correctly? https://www.academia.edu/46895402/Famous_Roman_Republicans_beginning_to_loom_as_spectral_Part_Two_b_Continuing_with_Pompey_the_Great …. Damien Mackey No need to apologise …. (Please call me Damien) It appears that you are right and that I did make the connection - though not in a very convincing fashion. It would fill a big gap. Perhaps we can now build on it. …. Afterwards I checked the article referred to by this reader: Famous Roman Republicans beginning to loom as spectral. Part Two (b): Continuing with Pompey the Great And found that the reader was perfectly correct, and that my memory wasn’t. In that article I had written: “The marble bust of Pompey is in the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek (Copenhagen). Its somewhat incongruous appearance, the round face and small lidded eyes beneath the leonine mane of hair, is because Pompey, the most powerful Roman of his day, sought a comparison with Alexander the Great …”. Pompey ‘Imitating’ Hellenistic? Previously I have quoted Nic Fields (Warlords of Republican Rome: Caesar Against Pompey, 2010), who wrote: His flatterers, so it was said, likened Pompey to Alexander the Great, and whether because of this or not, the Macedonian king would appear to have been constantly in his mind. His respect for the fairer sex is comparable with Alexander’s, and Plutarch mentions that when the concubines of Mithridates were brought to him he merely restored them to their parents and families. …. Similarly he treated the corpse of Mithridates in a kingly way, as Alexander treated the corpse of Dareios, and ‘provided for the expenses of the funeral and directed that the remains should receive royal interment’. …. Also, like Alexander, he founded many cities and repaired many damaged towns, searched for the ocean that was thought to surround the world, and rewarded his soldiers munificently. Finally, Appian adds that in his third triumph he was said to have worn ‘a cloak of Alexander the Great’. …. It is interesting to learn that the original name of Antiochus IV ‘Epiphanes’, who, like Pompey, would desecrate the Temple of Yahweh in Jerusalem, was likewise “Mithridates”: http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Antiochus_IV_Epiphanes Fields again (p. 98): In a sense Pompey personified Roman imperialism, where absolute destruction was followed by the construction of stable empire and the rule of law. It also, not coincidentally, raised him to a pinnacle of glory and wealth. The client–rulers who swelled the train of Rome also swelled his own. He received extraordinary honours from the communities of the east, as ‘saviour and benefactor of the People and of all Asia, guardian of land and sea’. …. There was an obvious precedent for all this. As the elder Pliny later wrote, Pompey’s victories ‘equalled in brilliance the exploits of Alexander the Great’. Without a doubt, so Pliny continues, the proudest boast of our ‘Roman Alexander’ would be that ‘he found Asia on the rim of Rome’s possessions, and left it in the centre’. …. Pompey is even supposed to have gone so far as to have tried to emulate Alexander’s distinctive appearance: http://penelope.uchicago.edu/~grout/encyclopaedia_romana/miscellanea/cleopatra/pompey. The marble bust of Pompey is in the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek (Copenhagen). Its somewhat incongruous appearance, the round face and small lidded eyes beneath the leonine mane of hair, is because Pompey, the most powerful Roman of his day, sought a comparison with Alexander the Great, whose distinctive portraits were characterized by a thoughtful facial expression and, more iconographically, locks of hair brushed back high from the forehead, a stylistic form known as anastole, from the Greek “to put back.” …. Did Pompey absorb – like I have argued may have been the case with Julius Caesar – not only Alexander-like characteristics, but also general Hellenistic ones? Or, more to the point - in the context of this series - was the semi-legendary “Pompey” a composite based upon Hellenistic personages? And might that mean that the famous event of Pompey’s desecration (by his presence therein) of the Temple of Yahweh in Jerusalem, supposedly in 63 BC: http://jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/12264-pompey-the-great The capture of the Temple mount was accompanied by great slaughter. The priests who were officiating despite the battle were massacred by the Roman soldiers, and many committed suicide; while 12,000 people besides were killed. Pompey himself entered the Temple, but he was so awed by its sanctity that he left the treasure and the costly vessels untouched (“Ant.” xiv. 4, § 4; “B. J.” i. 7, § 6; Cicero, “Pro Flacco,” § 67). The leaders of the war party were executed, and the city and country were laid under tribute. A deadly blow was struck at the Jews when Pompey separated from Judea the coast cities from Raphia to Dora, as well as all the Hellenic cities in the east-Jordan country, and the so-called Decapolis, besides Scythopolis and Samaria, all of which were incorporated in the new province of Syria [,] may be in fact a muddled version of that real historical incident when Antiochus (Mithridates) ‘Epiphanes’ most infamously desecrated the Temple by erecting an image of Zeus in his own likeness on the altar? Or it may pertain to the sacrilegious actions later of Pontius Pilate in Judaea. Era of Pompey about a century too early Having already argued for the era of Antiochus IV ‘Epiphanes’ to be collapsed into the time of Herod ‘the Great’ - a downward shift of more than a century and a half - I am now of the tentative opinion that the era of Antipas (Antipater), conventionally dated to c. 79 BC, properly belongs about a century later, to around 30 AD. With the composite “Pompey” perhaps being, in part, a recollection of the biblical and historical Pontius Pilate, then Antipas becomes the Herod Antipas of that time. John Hyrcanus II - no doubt the same as John Hyrcanus I, the son of Simon the Hasmonaean - who was deposed, then re-instated, would then perhaps become the once deposed Annas the High Priest. About John Hyrcanus, so-called II, we read: http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/7973-hyrcanus-ii High priest from about 79 to 40 B.C. …. He had scarcely reigned three months when his younger brother, Aristobulus, rose in rebellion; whereupon Hyrcanus advanced against him at the head of his mercenaries and his Sadducean followers. Near Jericho the brothers met in battle; many of the soldiers of Hyrcanus went over to Aristobulus, and thereby gave the latter the victory. Hyrcanus took refuge in the citadel of Jerusalem; but the capture of the Temple by Aristobulus compelled Hyrcanus to surrender. A peace was then concluded, according to the terms of which Hyrcanus was to renounce the throne and the office of high priest (comp. Schürer, "Gesch." i. 291, note 2), but was to enjoy the revenues of the latter office. Intrigues of Antipater. The struggle would have ended here but for Antipater. That astute Idumean saw clearly that it would be easier to reach the object of his ambition, the control of Judea, under the government of the weak Hyrcanus than under the warlike and energetic Aristobulus. He accordingly began to impress upon Hyrcanus' mind that Aristobulus was planning his death, finally persuading him to take refuge with Aretas, king of the Nabatæans. Aretas, bribed by Antipater, who also promised him the restitution of the Arabian towns taken by the Hasmoneans, readily espoused the cause of Hyrcanus and advanced toward Jerusalem with an army of fifty thousand. …. Intervention of the Romans. While this civil war was going on the Roman general Scaurus went to Syria to take possession, in the name of Pompey, of the kingdom of the Seleucids. He was appealed to by the brothers, each endeavoring by gifts and promises to win him over to his side. At first Scaurus, moved by a gift of four hundred talents, decided in favor of Aristobulus. Aretas was ordered to withdraw his army from Judea, and while retreating suffered a crushing defeat at the hands of Aristobulus. But when Pompey came to Syria (63) a different situation arose. The conqueror of Asia, who had decided to bring Judea under the rule of the Romans, took the same view of Hyrcanus' ability, and was actuated by much the same motives, as Antipater: as a ward of Rome Hyrcanus would be more acceptable than Aristobulus. When, therefore, the brothers, and delegates of the people's party, which, weary of Hasmonean quarrels, desired the extinction of the dynasty, presented themselves before Pompey, he delayed the decision, in spite of Aristobulus' gift of a golden vine valued at five hundred talents. The latter, however, fathomed the designs of Pompey, and entrenched himself in the fortress of Alexandrium; but, soon realizing the uselessness of resistance, surrendered at the first summons of the Romans, and undertook to deliver Jerusalem over to them. The patriots, however, were not willing to open their gates to the Romans, and a siege ensued which ended with the capture of the city. Thus, between the weakness of Hyrcanus and the ambition of Aristobulus, Judea lost its independence. Aristobulus was taken to Rome a prisoner, and Hyrcanus was reappointed high priest, but without political authority. …. Annas was also known as Ananus, which name may derive from John (Hyrcanus), or Johanan (less likely, I think, from Hyrc-anus). He, like John Hyrcanus, was once deposed, but continued to wield great influence: http://www.oxfordbiblicalstudies.com/article/opr/t94/e108 “Although deposed, Annas continued to hold an influential position in the Sanhedrin, and according to John 18 (but not mentioned in the synoptic gospels) Annas presided over a preliminary hearing of the case against Jesus before the trial by Caiaphas”. And again: http://latter-rain.com/ltrain/annas.htm Annas was deprived by the royal priesthood by Roman authority. While Annas was actually deposed, he had gained such a foothold while in office that he continued to be the power in Israel, even though his son-in-law, Caiaphas, was the legal high priest. He was regarded as the real high priest by the stricter Jews and the people regarded him as God's high priest. Annas was likely the richest man in Israel, controlling all the temple traffic (money-changers, etc.). Besides Caiaphas, five of his sons and one of his grandsons occupied the office of the high priest, so that Annas remained the power behind the throne until the revolt of 66. The John mentioned in Acts 4 was [Annas's] son and was high priest in AD 36. …. John Hyrcanus (I/II) and Annas (Ananus) comparisons (i) High Priest https://www.geni.com/people/John-Hyrcanus-I-Hasmonean-Ethnarch-High-Priest/6000000012133523012 “Essentially, criticism of Hyrcanus’ roles as High Priest and ethnarch by the Pharisees led to a falling out”. https://www.britannica.com/biography/John-Hyrcanus-II “John Hyrcanus II (died 30 bc, Jerusalem) was the high priest of Judaea from 76 to 40 bc, and, with his brother Aristobulus II, last of the Maccabean (Hasmonean) dynastic rulers”. https://www.julianspriggs.co.uk/Pages/AnnasCaiaphas “Annas, or Ananias, or Ananus, son of Seth, was appointed high priest by Quirinius, the governor of Syria in AD 6”. (ii) Sadducee https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Hyrcanus “… Hyrcanus sided with the rivals of the Pharisees, the Sadducees”. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyrcanus_II “Hyrcanus II’s sectarian orientation is now generally understood to have been Sadducee”. https://www.julianspriggs.co.uk/Pages/AnnasCaiaphas “Annas was a member of the Sadducees, the aristocracy of first century Judea”. (iii) Deposed We have just read that John Hyrcanus (as II), Annas, had been “deposed”: [Annas], like John Hyrcanus, was once deposed, but continued to wield great influence: http://www.oxfordbiblicalstudies.com/article/opr/t94/e108 “Although deposed, Annas continued to hold an influential position in the Sanhedrin, and according to John 18 (but not mentioned in the synoptic gospels) Annas presided over a preliminary hearing of the case against Jesus before the trial by Caiaphas”. And again: http://latter-rain.com/ltrain/annas.htm Annas was deprived by the royal priesthood by Roman authority. While Annas was actually deposed, he had gained such a foothold while in office that he continued to be the power in Israel, even though his son-in-law, Caiaphas, was the legal high priest. Likewise, we read: https://www.britannica.com/biography/John-Hyrcanus-II “… Hyrcanus was appointed high priest, and on his mother’s death in 67 he assumed the rulership of Judaea. After a troubled reign of three months, his warlike brother Aristobulus drove him from power”. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ananus_ben_Ananus “… Ananus was therefore deposed by King Herod Agrippa II …”. (iv) Five sons Added to that, John Hyrcanus, Annas, had five sons: https://time.graphics/period/1499577 “Josephus said that John Hyrcanus had five sons but named only four in his histories: Judah Aristobulus I, Antigonus I, Alexander Jannai, and Absalom”. https://www.julianspriggs.co.uk/Pages/AnnasCaiaphas “Josephus said this about the family of Annas: “Now the report goes, that this elder Ananus proved a most fortunate man; for he had five sons, who had all performed the office of high priest to God, and he had himself enjoyed that dignity a long time formerly, which had never happened to any other of our high priests” (Ant 20:198)” (v) Related Names Annas (Ananias) and John (Hyrcanus) are related names: https://www.abarim-publications.com/Meaning/Ananias.html Ananias …. Related names • Via חנן (hanan): Anna, Annas, Baal-hanan, Ben-hanan, Elhanan, Elonbeth-hanan, Hanan, Hananel, Hanani, Hananiah, Hannah, Hannathon, Hannibal, Hanniel, Hanun, Hen, Henadad, Jannai, Jannes, Jehohanan, Joanna, Joanan, Johanan, John, Jonan, Tahan, Tehinnah (vi) Power and wealth https://www.geni.com/people/John-Hyrcanus-I-Hasmonean-Ethnarch-High-Priest/6000000012133523012 “... Hyrcanus was met with fortune in 128 BC when Antiochus VII was killed in battle against Parthia. What followed was an era of conquest led by Hyrcanus that marked the high point of Judea as the most significant power in Syria. …. At the end of his reign, John Hyrcanus had built a kingdom that rivaled the size of Israel under King Solomon”. https://www.julianspriggs.co.uk/Pages/AnnasCaiaphas “Through skilful diplomacy and probably much bribery, [Annas] was able to ensure that family remained dominant in Judea for many years. …. indicates that power and influence that Annas continued to exercise …”. (vii) Character https://www.encyclopedia.com/religion/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/hyrcanus-john “Later rabbinic tradition depicts him as having been "righteous originally" (Ber. 29a), even to the extent of stating that he heard a *bat kol (Sot. 33a). …. In the course of time, however, the authoritarian and secularist character of his administration began to show itself …”. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ananus_ben_Ananus “… in the Antiquities of the Jews he was more critical of his behaviour, calling [Ananus] "a bold man in his temper, and very insolent". And, again: https://www.julianspriggs.co.uk/Pages/AnnasCaiaphas Annas was a member of the Sadducees, the aristocracy of first century JudeaHe shared their characteristics of being arrogant, ambitious, and having enormous wealth, which they used to maintain their political control. His family were notorious for their greed. The Talmud records a popular rhyme which described the family of Annas: “Woe to the house of Annas! Woe to their serpent’s hiss! They are high priests; their sons are keepers of the treasury, their sons-in-law are guardians of the temple, and their servants beat people with staves.” (Pesahim 57a) https://www.encyclopedia.com/religion/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/hyrcanus-john “It is uncertain whether the coins bearing the legend "Johanan the High Priest" and Ḥever ha-Yehudim or rosh ḥever ha-Yehudim were minted by him or by his grandson *Hyrcanus ii.” One and the same John Hyrcanus, so I believe.

Josephus on martyrdom of Apostle James

“The current scholarly consensus is that this text is authentic”. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ananus_ben_Ananus Josephus's account of the death of James as follows: Ananus, who, as we have told you already, took the high priesthood, was a bold man in his temper, and very insolent; he was also of the sect of the Sadducees, who are very rigid in judging offenders, above all the rest of the Jews, as we have already observed; when, therefore, Ananus was of this disposition, he thought he had now a proper opportunity [to exercise his authority]. Festus was now dead, and Albinus was but upon the road; so he assembled the Sanhedrin of judges, and brought before them the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James, and some others, [or, some of his companions]; and when he had formed an accusation against them as breakers of the law, he delivered them to be stoned: but as for those who seemed the most equitable of the citizens, and such as were the most uneasy at the breach of the laws, they disliked what was done; they also sent to the king [Agrippa], desiring him to send to Ananus that he should act so no more, for that what he had already done was not to be justified; nay, some of them went also to meet Albinus, as he was upon his journey from Alexandria, and informed him that it was not lawful for Ananus to assemble a Sanhedrin without his consent. Whereupon Albinus complied with what they said, and wrote in anger to Ananus, and threatened that he would bring him to punishment for what he had done; on which king Agrippa took the high priesthood from him, when he had ruled but three months, and made Jesus, the son of Damneus, high priest.[3] The current scholarly consensus is that this text is authentic.[4][5][6][7] Moreover, in comparison with Hegesippus's account of James's death in his Hypomnemata, scholars consider Josephus's to be the more historically reliable.[8] …. Josephus. "20.9.1". The Antiquities of the Jews. Van Voorst 2000, p. 83. Richard Bauckham states that although a few scholars have questioned this passage, "the vast majority have considered it to be authentic" (Bauckham 1999, pp. 199–203). Feldman & Hata 1987, pp. 54–57. Flavius Josephus & Maier 1995, pp. 284–285. Painter 2004, p. 126.

So sad, you see, this Annas the Sadducee

“When Jesus entered the Temple and overthrew the moneychangers' tables, He caused a real financial hit to Annas and his family. The holy days, when a few million pilgrims traveled to Jerusalem, were their most lucrative times. Jesus' actions shut down their operations for a few days, cutting severely into their bottom line”. John Reiss Article taken from: https://www.cgg.org/index.cfm/library/weekly/id/1002/house-annas.htm The House of Annas by John Reiss CGG Weekly, May 1, 2020 ________________________________________ "There is no safety for honest men but by believing all possible evil of evil men." —Edmund Burke ________________________________________ The evangelist Luke writes in Luke 3:1-2: "Now in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea, . . . while Annas and Caiaphas were high priests, the word of God came to John the son of Zacharias in the wilderness." We know what happened at the end of this story: Pilate condemned Jesus Christ to crucifixion on Passover day in AD 31. But how much do we know about the people who conspired to put Him to death, Annas and Caiaphas, who were high priests at the time? These two men were Sadducees. The Sadducees did not leave any written records themselves, but The Jewish Encyclopedia summarizes their views and principles: • The Sadducees represented the powerful and wealthy, and their interests focused on the here and now. They tended to be astute politicians. • They conducted their lives to enrich themselves and protect their positions of power. • The Sadducees considered only the five books of Moses to be authoritative. In rejecting the prophets, they did not believe in a resurrection (Acts 23:8). The same verse says they did not believe in angels or demons either. • They judged harshly; mercy does not seem to have part of their character. Unlike the Pharisees, who maintained that the Oral Law provided for a correct interpretation of God's Word, the Sadducees believed only in the written law and a literal interpretation of it. For instance, instead of seeing "an eye for an eye" as a principle of comparative compensation, the Sadducees held that it meant a literal removal of the offender's eye. The New Standard International Encyclopedia says that the word Sadducee implies the meaning of "to be righteous," and suggests that they took their name from Zadok, the high priest during David's time, from whom all succeeding high priests claim their descent. Conversely, a legend posits that they took their name from another Zadok who followed Antigonus of Socho. Antigonus taught his disciples to serve God without thought of reward. Instead of recognizing this teaching as a moral principle, Zadok believed that it refuted the ideas of resurrection and life after death, wrongly concluding that people should seek to live luxuriously in the present. The most powerful Sadducee in the first century was Annas, also known as Ananus or Ananias. In Hebrew, his name was Hananiah, meaning "the grace of Yahweh." Because of his descent from Aaron, he was considered a legitimate high priest. He was born around 22 or 23 BC and lived until approximately AD 40, though the actual date of his death is unrecorded. Quirinius appointed him to the position of high priest in AD 6, which he filled until AD 15 when Valerius Gratus deposed him for executing lawbreakers for religious infractions, a practice Rome had forbidden. Evidently, he had a young Sabbath-breaker stoned. Accumulating impressive power at an early age, Annas used it well. Five of his sons, a grandson, and most famously, his son-in-law, Caiaphas, were also elevated to the high priesthood. His son, Eleazar, succeeded him (AD 16-17); then Caiaphas (AD 18-36); four other sons, Jonathan (AD 36-37, 44), Theophilus (AD 37-41), Matthias (AD 43), and Annas II (AD 63); and a grandson, Matthias ben Theophilus (AD 65-66). Historian Alfred Edersheim writes in The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah (I, 263) that the Talmud describes the high priests of the time "in terrible language. . . . [The House of Annas] is included in the woes pronounced on the corrupt leaders of the priesthood," whose presence defiled the Sanctuary. Several nineteenth-century commentators speculated that the Parable of Lazarus and the Rich Man (Luke 16:19-31) refers to the House of Annas, implying their guilt in conspiring to kill Jesus' friend, Lazarus. In the parable, the rich man dressed in purple and fine linen (see Exodus 28:1-8) represents Caiaphas, and the "five brothers" were Annas' sons who followed him in the high priestly office. Although the Roman authorities appointed others to the high priesthood, the Jewish people considered Annas to be the high priest by divine law. Thus, he held authority over spiritual matters. He may also have been the richest man in Judea, controlling all Temple trade, that is, the moneychangers and their ilk. He also maintained his political influence as a kind of "boss of bosses." That the soldiers who arrested Jesus brought Him to Annas' palace first and then to Caiaphas attests to this fact (John 18:13). Annas sought to use his office to protect his power and influence while enriching his family. The House of Annas amassed a fortune by selling at outrageous prices things that faithful pilgrims needed for their sacrifices, including sheep, wine, and oil at the infamous "booths of the sons of Annas" on the Mount of Olives. They also owned market stalls in the Court of the Gentiles, and with this monopoly, they could extort high prices from the faithful. The depth of this family's corruption was notorious, including the huge profits they made from exchanging foreign monies into Temple coins for the required Temple tax. The House of Annas even took advantage of women. When a woman gave birth, the law required her to give an offering at the Temple, usually a sheep, but if poor, she could bring two turtledoves or two young pigeons, as a burnt offering and a sin offering (Leviticus 12:6-8). The House of Annas raised the cost of these birds to where poor women could not afford it, perhaps over twelve times the previous value. Matthew 21:12-13 relates the story of Jesus' and the moneychangers: Then Jesus went into the temple of God and drove out all those who bought and sold in the temple, and overturned the tables of the money changers, and the seats of those who sold doves. And He said to them, ‘It is written, ‛My House shall be called a house of prayer,' but you have made it a den of thieves." When Jesus entered the Temple and overthrew the moneychangers' tables, He caused a real financial hit to Annas and his family. The holy days, when a few million pilgrims traveled to Jerusalem, were their most lucrative times. Jesus' actions shut down their operations for a few days, cutting severely into their bottom line. After He overturned the tables, the scribes and the chief priests sought to destroy Him (Mark 11:18). As one commentator, E.G. Lewis, states, "He raised their ire by striking at the source of their wealth and like a typical Mafia chieftain, Annas responded with violence." Joseph Ernest Renan, a French expert of ancient Middle Eastern languages and civilizations, writes in his Life of Jesus, "Annas was the principal actor in the terrible drama, and far more than Caiaphas, far more than Pilate, ought to bear the weight of the maledictions of mankind" (p. 231). As the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia states in its article on Annas, "Caiaphas, indeed, as actual high priest, was the nominal head of the Sanhedrin which condemned Jesus, but the aged Annas was the ruling spirit." Such was the official religious authority in Judea during the life of Jesus and the early years of God's church.

Maccabees and Crusaders are substantially identical

“Modern authors tend to accept as an axiom that in the twelfth century, there existed a strong identification between crusaders and the Maccabean warriors. Penny Cole wrote, for example, that “in all essential ways the struggles of the Maccabees against the persecutor Antiochus . . . and by association, of the crusaders against Muslim infidel, are substantially identical”. Elizabeth Lapina See also Damien F. Mackey’s related article: Maccabees may aptly be compared with Crusaders (4) Maccabees may aptly be compared with Crusaders | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu Elizabeth Lapina has written most intriguingly on this subject in her article: “Maccabees and the Battle of Antioch (1098)” (4) “Maccabees and the Battle of Antioch (1098)” | Elizabeth Lapina - Academia.edu …. It is unclear what exactly the crusaders and medieval chroniclers of the Crusades knew about the importance of Antioch within the cult of the Jewish martyrs in Late Antiquity. When describing the city, crusading sources do not mention the Maccabees. One of the rare exceptions is the so-called Charleville Poet, who claims that Antioch was very ancient: “the book of Maccabees asserts its [Antioch’s] existence, when the priest is said to have perished, next to Daphne.” the poet is apparently alluding to the assassination of the pious Priest Onias in the vicinity of the city, described in the Second Book of Maccabees (2 Macc 4:34). …. In general, medieval writers of history were always eagerly looking for biblical prototypes of later events and figures. While Maccabean martyrs hardly resembled crusaders, Maccabean warriors did. Maccabean warriors shared the name of the Maccabean martyrs, but, of course, not their fate, fighting Antiochus actively under the leadership of Judas Maccabeus. Both the Maccabean warriors and crusaders fought for control of the city of Jerusalem and took pride in the restoration of holy sites. While the Maccabees fought against a Pagan enemy, crusaders struggled against Muslims, whom they frequently associated with Pagans. Last but not least, both profited from divine help on the battlefield. Modern authors tend to accept as an axiom that in the twelfth century, there existed a strong identification between crusaders and the Maccabean warriors. Penny Cole wrote, for example, that “in all essential ways the struggles of the Maccabees against the persecutor Antiochus . . . and by association, of the crusaders against Muslim infidel, are substantially identical.” Indeed, Baldwin I, the second ruler and first Latin king of Jerusalem, was called a “second Maccabee” in the laudatory inscription on his tombstone. Describing the Battle of Tall Danith, in which Prince Roger of Antioch emerged victorious, Fulcher of Chartres exclaims as follows: “For when did victory of fighters ever depend upon the number of men? Remember the Maccabees, Gideon, and many others who confided not in their own strength but in God and in that way overcame many thousands.” …. For instance, in the ninth century, Rabanus Maurus, a monk and the archbishop of Mainz, argued that Mattathias (the father of Judas Maccabeus) was a “type” of Christ and his sons signified the community of saints. In the late tenth or early eleventh century, Aelfric, an abbot at the Anglo-Saxon monastery of Eynsham, included the story of Judas Maccabeus in his collection of saints’ vitae compiled for the edification of the laity. On the one hand, Aelfric acknowledged that warfare in defense of one’s home and one’s faith, such as the one that Judas Maccabeus had undertaken, was just. On the other hand, he emphasized that spiritual combat is of greater value than actual warfare. In the aftermath of the First Crusade, there was considerable questioning of old paradigms regarding warfare. Some began to argue that crusaders fought “for Christ” and hence could almost be equated with monks. This revalorization of warfare led, at least in part, to the increasing popularity of the Maccabean warriors. However, many authors writing about the First Crusade found the very outward resemblance between the Maccabees and crusaders disturbing. From their perspective, if the wars of crusaders were both physical and spiritual, the wars of the Maccabees lacked a spiritual dimension, since, of course, they had nothing to do with the Christian faith. Damien Mackey’s comment: But, see my articles: Religious war waging in Judah during the Infancy of Jesus https://www.academia.edu/107036451/Religious_war_raging_in_Judah_during_the_Infancy_of_Jesus and: Shepherds of Bethlehem and the five Maccabees https://www.academia.edu/111517720/Shepherds_of_Bethlehem_and_the_five_Maccabees Elizabeth Lapina continues: …. Both Cafaro and Fulcher saw the crusaders as “new Maccabees” of a hybrid variety: they resisted actively, with sword in hand, just like Judas Maccabeus, but at the same time they were martyrs, just as the Priest Eleazar, the seven brothers and their mother. In this manner, the connection between the crusaders and Maccabees acquired a new meaning: the deeds of the crusaders surpassed the military exploits of the Maccabean warriors and, at the very least, equaled the spiritual victories of the Maccabean martyrs. …. The moment when crusaders came closest to resembling the Maccabees was during the Battle of Antioch. According to a number of sources, crusaders were able to emerge victorious thanks to divine intervention. For instance, the anonymous author of Gesta Francorum, one of the earliest narratives of the First Crusade, writes that there “appeared from the mountains a countless host of men on white horses, whose banners were all white.” he crusaders realized that “this was the succor sent by Christ, and that the leaders were St. George, St. Mercurius and St. Demetrius.” An obvious parallel to this and other narratives of celestial intervention in the Battle of Antioch is to be found in the Second Book of Maccabees, where there are several similar episodes. In one battle, for instance, “five resplendent men from heaven on horses with golden bridles . . . led on the Jews” (2 Macc 10:29–30). They “showered arrows and thunderbolts on the enemy till, blinded and disordered, they were utterly bewildered and cut to pieces” (2 Macc 10:30–31). There are several other biblical and non-biblical texts that mention celestial warriors or an entire celestial army. However, the only parallel that chroniclers of the Crusades acknowledge overtly is with the Second Book of Maccabees. William of Malmesbury, who included an extensive narrative of the First Crusade in his Deeds of the English Kings, uses the reference to the Maccabees to demonstrate that the miracle of saintly intervention in the Battle of Antioch was credible. Ater describing the miracle, he adds: “nor can we deny that martyrs have aided Christians, at any rate when fighting in a cause like this, just as angels once gave help to the Maccabees.” According to William, both the Maccabees and crusaders were fighting for a worthy cause and thus deserved divine help. Thus, William’s reference seems to be an example of a conventional use of Jewish heroes as prototypes of medieval warriors. …. Orderic Vitalis, the author of Ecclesiastical History, most of which was written between 1123 and 1137, represents the fourth strategy for undermining the standard connection between the crusaders and Maccabees. Orderic’s presentation of the Battle of the Field of Blood seems a response to that connection as raised, for instance, by Fulcher in the framework of the Battle of Tall Danith. As discussed above, Fulcher compared crusaders to Maccabees, who frequently won battles regardless of their numerical inferiority. he Battle of the Field of Blood took place just four years ater the Battle of Tall Danith; it was also fought relatively close to Antioch and involved the same crusading leader, Prince Roger of Antioch. But as its name suggests, the Battle of the Field of Blood was an unprecedented disaster for crusaders, with Prince Roger killed and his entire army annihilated. According to Orderic, just before the battle’s beginning, Bernard of Valence, the Patriarch of Antioch, warned Roger against engaging the enemy, begging him to wait for reinforcements. Abandoning the discourse of divinely-sponsored victory of the few over many, the patriarch gave Roger highly practical advice: “Temper your zeal with prudence, valiant duke, and wait for King Baldwin and Joscelin and the other loyal lords who are coming early to our assistance. Rash haste has brought many men to ruin and deprived great princes of life and victory.” The Patriarch supported his admonitions by citing historical precedent: Study ancient and modern histories, and ponder seriously over the fates of some remarkable kings. Call to mind Saul and Josiah and Judas Maccabeus, and the Romans who were defeated by Hannibal at Cannae, and take great care not to drag your subjects with yourself into a disaster of the same kind. Wait for your worthy allies . . . …. The Maccabean warriors and crusaders fought their wars on the same terrain, with Jerusalem being the ultimate goal. Both referred to the restoration of sites of worship and the possibility of freely practicing their faith in the city as the aims of their fighting and both profited from a remarkably similar type of miracle: the intervention of celestial agents on the battlefield. …. In canto XVIII of Dante’s Paradiso, completed shortly before the author’s death in 1321, the narrator meets eight rulers who have been admitted to paradise. The attribute shared by all eight is having defended the “true faith,” whether Judaism or Christianity, against “infidels.” Among these individuals, the narrator meets Duke Geofrey of Bouillon, one of the leaders of the First Crusade, and “the great Maccabee” (alto Maccabeo), presumably Judas. Clearly, by the fourteenth century, the controversy surrounding the comparisons between Christian and Jewish warriors was a thing of the past. It was no longer disquieting to find a crusader and a Maccabean warrior as neighbors in paradise.

Abram (Abraham), Egypt, the Four Kings

by Damien F. Mackey Abraham was the first of the Hebrew patriarchs and a figure highly revered by the three great monotheistic religions—Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. His name contains the “Father” element both in its original short form, Abram (אַבְרָם), “Exalted Father”, and after the Lord had changed it, to Abraham (אַבְרָהָם), “Father of many nations”, as explained in Genesis 17:4-5: ‘Behold, I make my covenant with thee, and thou shalt be a Father of many nations. Neither shall thy name anymore be called Abram, but thy name shall be Abraham …’. Abram came from Ur of the Chaldees. This was not the Ur in southern (Iraq) Mesopotamia, but Ur (or Urfa) near Haran (the Ebla tablets tell of “Ur in Haran”), not far from where Noah’s Ark had landed on the mountain Karaca Dağ. Pope Francis actually went to Ur in Iraq in 2021, as John Paul II had intended to do: https://aleteia.org/2024/09/01/pope-francis-crazy-gamble-his-historic-visit-to-iraq “But the head of the Catholic Church had no intention of reliving the disappointment of his predecessor, John Paul II, who reluctantly had to abandon his historic trip to Iraq to inaugurate the Great Jubilee of the Year 2000 in the land of Abraham, the father of believers”. Well, as they say, to Ur is human. There are various legends associated with Abram, his father, Terah, and Nimrod in Ur. Nimrod I have identified with Sargon of Akkad, and I think he was also Naram-Sin. Abram was, indeed, a (younger) contemporary of this Nimrod. Some of these legends seem to have borrowed from later events, such as the Magi star and Herodian infanticide (there is even one about Abram thrown into a fiery furnace). What is sure is that the son, Abram, was far more Godly than was his idolatrous father, Terah. A Jewish writer for Chabad.org tells this story of Abram, Terah and Nimrod: https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/112333/jewish/Nimrod-and-Abraham.htm Nimrod and Abraham The Two Rivals Nimrod's Humble Heritage Nimrod the mighty hunter was one of the sons of Kush. Kush was the son of Ham, the lowest and least important of Noah's three sons. Nimrod came from a line which was cursed by Noah: "Cursed be Canaan, a slave of slaves shall he be unto his brothers." By birth, Nimrod had no right to be a king or ruler. But he was a mighty strong man, and sly and tricky, and a great hunter and trapper of men and animals. His followers grew in number, and soon Nimrod became the mighty king of Babylon, and his empire extended over other great cities. As was to be expected, Nimrod did not feel very secure on his throne. He feared that one day there would appear a descendant of Noah's heir and successor, Shem, and would claim the throne. He was determined to have no challenger. Some of Shem's descendants had already been forced to leave that land and build their own cities and empires. There was only one prominent member of the Semitic family left in his country. He was Terah, the son of Nahor. Terah was the eighth generation removed, in a direct line of descendants from Shem. But Nimrod had nothing to fear from Terah, his most loyal and trusted servant. Terah had long before betrayed his family, and had become a follower of Nimrod. All of his ancestors were still living, including Shem himself, but Terah left his ancestral home and became attached to Nimrod. Terah, who should have been the master and Nimrod his slave, became the slave of Nimrod. Like the other people in that country, Terah believed that Nimrod received his kingdom as a gift from the "gods," and was himself a "god." Terah was prepared to serve Nimrod with all his heart. Indeed, he proved himself a very loyal and useful servant. Nimrod entrusted into his hands the command of his armies and made Terah the highest minister in his land. Terah was short of nothing but a wife. So he found himself a wife, whose name was Amathlai. They looked forward to raising a large family, but they were not blessed with any children. The years flew by, and Terah still had no son. His father was only twenty-nine years old when he, Terah, was born. But Terah was getting closer to seventy than to thirty, and yet there was no son! He prayed to Nimrod and to his idols to bless him with a son, but his prayers were not answered. Little did he know that Nimrod felt happy about Terah's misfortune. For although Nimrod had nothing to fear from Terah, he could not be sure if Terah's sons would be as loyal to him as their father. Therefore, he was inwardly very pleased that his servant Terah had no children, and probably would never have any. But he could not be, sure, and Nimrod was not taking chances. He ordered his stargazers and astrologers to watch the sky for any sign of the appearance of a possible rival. The Rise of Abraham One night the star-gazers noticed a new star rising in the East. Every night it grew brighter. They informed Nimrod. Nimrod called together his magicians and astrologers. They all agreed that it meant that a new baby was to be born who might challenge Nimrod's power. It was decided that in order to prevent this, all new-born baby-boys would have to die, starting from the king's own palace, down to the humblest slave's hut. And who was to be put in charge of this important task? Why, Terah, of course, the king's most trusted servant. Terah sent out his men to round up all expectant mothers. The king's palace was turned into a gigantic maternity ward. A lucky mother gave birth to a girl, and then they were both sent home, laden with gifts. But if the baby happened to be a boy, he was put to death without mercy. One night, Nimrod's star-gazers watching that new star, saw it grow very bright and suddenly dart across the sky, first in one direction then in another, west, east, north and south, swallowing up all other stars in its path. Nimrod was with his star-gazers on the roof of his palace, and saw the strange display in the sky with his own eyes. "What is the meaning of this?" he demanded. "There can be only one explanation. A son was born tonight who would challenge the king's power, and the father is none other than Terah." "Terah?!" Nimrod roared. "My own trusted servant?" Nimrod's Rage Nimrod had never given a thought to Terah as becoming a father at the age of seventy. However, if he did become a father, he would surely be glad to offer his first-born son to his king and god! Nimrod dispatched a messenger to Terah at once, ordering him to appear together with his newly born son. That night Terah and his wife Amathlai had indeed become the happy parents of a baby boy, who brought a great light and radiance into their home. Terah had hoped it would be a girl, and he would have no terrible decision to make. Now he could not think of giving up this lovely baby, born to him at his old age after such longing. He had managed to keep his wife's expectancy a secret. None of his servants knew about the birth of his son. There was a secret passage leading from his palace to a cave in the field. He took the baby to that cave and left it there. As he was returning to the palace, past the servants' quarters, he suddenly heard the cry of a baby. What good fortune! Terah cried. It so happened that one of his servants had given birth to a boy about the same time as his own son was born. Terah took the baby and put him in silk swaddling and handed him to his wife to nurse. Just then the king's messenger arrived. When Terah with the baby in his arms appeared before Nimrod, Terah declared: "I was just about to bring my son to you, when your messenger came." Nimrod thought it was mighty loyal of Terah to give up his only son, born to him in his old age. Little did he know that it was not Terah's son who was brought to die, but a servant's. Abraham Emerges For three years little Abraham remained in the cave, where he did not know day from night. Then he came out of the cave and saw the bright sun in the sky, and thought that it was G d, who had created the heaven and the earth, and him, too. But in the evening the sun went down, and the moon rose in the sky, surrounded by myriads of stars. "This must be G d," Abraham decided. But the moon, too, disappeared, and the sun reappeared, and Abraham decided that there must be a G d Who rules over the sun and the moon and the stars, and the whole world. And so, from the age of three years and on, Abraham knew that there was only one G d, and he was resolved to pray to Him and worship Him alone. A life full of many and great adventures began for Abraham …. So much for the fantastic legends. But was Abraham real? For one, the name Abram has been found at Ebla, not far from Abram’s Haran (map). And, the city of Nahur in the Mari archive may reflect the name of Abram’s grandfather, Nahor (Genesis 11:22), whose name was passed on to Abram’s brother, Nahor (v. 27). The other brother was Haran, the name of the place in which Abram settled after Ur. THE REAL ABRAHAM The Ebla Tablets and the Abraham Tradition David Noel Freedman …. Of particular interest are the names of places and persons. We find an extensive area of overlap between the Ebla tablets and the biblical text. Among the many personal names in both the Bible and the tablets are the following: Abram, David, Esau, Ishmael, Israel, Micaiah, Michael, and Saul. We have normalized the spelling of these names to conform to the biblical pattern, but the spelling in Eblaite is so close in all cases that there can be no question of the identity of the names. (In no case can we say the persons are identical, however.) In some cases, notably that of David (which in Eblaite is spelled da-ud-um), the name is not known from any other source in ancient times. Such occurrences point back to a common basis in language and culture for the ancestors of the Israelites and the people of Ebla. Actually, this is no surprise, because the Bible, while not mentioning Ebla, does point to this region as the fatherland of the Israelites. The patriarchs came to Canaan from Haran, where elements of their kinship group continued to live long after Abraham and his family had departed. A bride was brought from there for Isaac; and Jacob returned to his kinsmen there when prudence called for a rapid removal from Canaan. Haran is not very far away from Ebla, and is often mentioned in the Ebla texts. If an archive exists at Haran at the same stratigraphic level, and is ever found, those tablets should contain even more specific information about the patriarchs and their forebears, and should have closer contacts and correlations with the Bible. As it is, Ebla draws from the common pool of terms, names, and traditions which was shared by the biblical people. …. There may be even more relevant information than this, but Ebla, like Göbekli Tepe, has had something of a lid put on it by agenda-driven powers that be. In the Hindu religion: https://www.reddit.com/r/religion/comments/z3g3pf/brahma_abraham_and_sarah_saraswati_how_related/#:~:text=Brahma%20and%20Sarasvati%20lived%20toge Brahma / Abraham and Sarah / Saraswati. How related are they? Brahma is father of All (RV7.97b), while Abraham is father of many nations (Gen 17:5) Brahma’s wife is his sister Sarasvati (SV7.96.2), and she was a great beauty (AV19.17; KenU3), while Abraham’s wife, Sarah, is also his sister (Gen 20:12) and is beautiful (Gen 12:14). Saraswati is known for being a goddess of water, the name means something like retains water. The River Saraswati (PraU1.6) has a tributary named Ghaggar, reflective of the name of Sarah’s maidservant, Hagar. Sarah from Hebrew (שרר sharar) means ruler and / or retains water. Brahma and Sarasvati lived together for 100 years, then had their first son, while Abraham was 100 and Sarah was 90 when they had Isaac (Gen 21.5). Brahma’s son (or grandson), Daksha, is killed as the offering sacrifice before all the gods, while Abraham almost offers his son Isaac. At the pleading of his father, Brihaspati (born from Brahma’s body, RV3.23.1) Daksha is resurrected with the head of a ram, while Abraham finds a ram caught in a bush to sacrifice in place of his son Isaac (Gen 22:1-13). Brahma’s hidden offering (AV19.42.1-2), relates to Abraham’s offering of a ram caught in a bush. There are many more overlaps. …. Archaeology of the Abrahamic Era When historians and archaeologists wrongly identify a particular biblical era, then that usually serves to vitiate the fine fabric overall. For instance, the conventional archaeologists have made a huge mistake - though probably a fairly excusable one in this case - by identifying the nomadic Abraham and his family with the nomadic Middle Bronze I (MBI) people, who were, in fact, the much later Exodus Israelites. Once such a tsunami of a mistake has been made, then it sends unwanted ripples all the way down the line. Thus, apart from the Era of Abraham now no longer being identifiable, the major Exodus and Conquest scenarios, too - which actually belong to MBI - can no longer be identified. And so on it goes. Nelson Glueck, rabbi academic and archaeologist, and his erudite colleagues, could perhaps be forgiven for seizing upon the MBI nomads as appearing to be the right people, in the right era and area, for the Abrahamites - especially since the MBI age has been dated c. 2000-1550 BC, including the correct chronology for Abraham. Well correct, that is, if one follows the conventional system, which, however, sadly, is nearly always wrong. Moreover, so great was the reputation of Nelson Glueck that no one of academic note was likely to gainsay him. Dr. John Osgood, a Creationist, to whom the credit goes, I believe, for being the first and only one to identify the archaeological era of Abram (Abraham), has this to say about Nelson Glueck’s archaeological identification (in “The Times of Abraham”): https://creation.com/the-times-of-abraham Present time placement of Abraham The accepted or evolutionary time scale for the Paleolithic to Iron Age sequence, when placed side by side with the known time relationships in the Scripture concerning Abraham, allows a placement of Abraham of somewhere around the Middle Bronze I period (abbreviated MB I variously referred to as Early Bronze IV (EB IV) in Palestine, or Intermediate Early Bronze-Middle Bronze (see Figure 1). The placement originally of Abraham in this time slot can be largely traced to Nelson Glueck, with support from William Albright. Nelson Glueck was one who asserted the correctness historically of Scripture, yet held an evolutionary chronology and so placed Abraham in Middle Bronze I. [Dr. Osgood’s Figure 1. Time scheme of the accepted evolutionary chronology]. ‘If one believes, as we do, in the validity of the historical memories of the Bible, and if one accepts as real flesh and blood human beings the personages reflected in the portrayals of the Biblical Patriarchs, then the Age of Abraham must be assigned to the Middle Bronze I period, ending in the nineteenth century B.C… The only archaeological framework in which the person and period of Abraham in the Negeb can be placed is Middle Bronze I.’2 In that same discussion, Nelson Glueck insists that the destructions of MB I settlements corresponded to the biblical account of the destruction inflicted by Chedorlaomer and his confederates (Genesis 14). However, apart from the statement of such, he offered no positive evidence to confirm that such an historical link-up can be made more secure than the simple statement of belief. William Albright was quick to ally himself with Nelson Glueck and established a belief that Abraham was one who plied a trade as a donkey caravaneer between Mesopotamia and Egypt. This is a belief that was Albright’s, but certainly does not conform to the Scriptures, in the literal sense. ‘Nelson Glueck was prompt to associate the biblical traditions of Abraham with the MB I remains in the Negeb; he also recognised the fact that the settlements from this age were connected with old caravan routes.’3 So the MB I period of Palestine has since been indelibly associated with the time of Abraham in the minds of many. …. A need for a re-evaluation In no way can it be said that the times of Abraham have been established. Moreover, there is much about the presently accepted archaeological time slot which makes one feel quite uneasy. Abraham was the product of a generation that can be traced in the Bible ten generations from the Flood, the Bible narrative giving the impression that only about 430 years elapsed from the time of the world wide [sic] catastrophic Flood until the times of Abraham in Canaan (see Figure 2). Yet on the accepted time scale we are to admit huge amounts of time for the development of civilizations prior to the times of Abraham. …. Dr. Osgood will then proceed to render obsolete (my opinion) all other different attempts at pin-pointing the archaeological era for Abraham. He will do so by analysing the campaign of the four invading kings of Genesis 14, including Amraphel king of Shinar – another of my alter egos for Nimrod (= Sargon of Akkad; Naram-Sin). I shall consider this episode later, for, firstly, Abram has to go to Egypt, to escape from a deadly famine. A comment on Dr. Osgood: It is intriguing that he who has succeeded so brilliantly in unveiling the archaeological era of Abram, and has written as well as any – if not better – on the MBI Israelites of the Exodus and Conquest, and has sorted out the important archaeology of Jericho, has also managed to arrive at a fatal (I think) archaeological conclusion that must inevitably have that unwanted ripple effect as referred to above. For Dr. Osgood has - along with other (now deceased) conservative Christian writers whom he admires, namely Drs. Donovan Courville and David Down - concluded that the important Hammurabi of Babylon was a Middle Bronze Age ruler, and a contemporary of Joshua. These three Christian doctors had all taken a ruler of Hazor, named Jabin, mentioned in the Mari (see map above) archive as being the King Jabin whom Joshua had defeated and killed (Joshua 11:1-10). Unfortunately for Drs. Courville, Down and Osgood, Jabin was something of a generic name for rulers of Hazor. There were several of them, one (Jabin), again, being later, at the time of the prophetess Deborah (Judges 4:2). And neither of these kings Jabin was the Jabin of the Mari archive contemporaneous with Hammurabi king of Babylon, who - as has now been determined beyond doubt - belonged centuries later still, to the time of King Solomon of Israel (c. 950 BC). It is not hard to imagine what chaos might be caused in the quest for establishing a workable biblico-historical model for the ancient world by having the hugely influential king Hammurabi off-set from his proper place in time to the tune of some 500 years! ABRAM IN EGYPT Inevitably, the conventional scholars, with their MBI location of the Era of Abraham, must arrive at a synchronism with dynastic Egypt that is far too late. Abram, as we shall find, arrived in Archaïc Egypt, before the Old Kingdom era of pyramid building. Conventional dating would place him after the Old Kingdom, in the so-called First Intermediate Period (FIP) - about which period I now have doubts. However, because Egyptian history does not follow the linear pattern of dynasties as conventionally assigned to it, with the consequence that some ‘folding’ is involved, a fluke may occur in this case, with the FIP’s Tenth Dynasty - assigned by some to Abram - being contemporaneous with the Archaïc period in which Abram truly belongs. Abram belonged to, as will be argued here, the time of both the first ruler of Egypt’s First Dynasty, the famous Menes (c. 3100BC), and to his alter ego in the (Ninth or) Tenth Dynasty, Nebkaure Khety (c. 2100 BC). Obviously, these dates are too early for Abram (c. 1870 BC, Dr. Osgood), and will need to be dragged down the timescale. Nelson Glueck’s collaborator for the MBI era of Abram, the celebrated Dr. W.F. Albright, will this time make a much better fist of it, by re-dating Menes and the beginning of dynastic Egyptian history to the time of Naram-Sin (above), who, as Albright concluded, had conquered Menes. Naram-Sin of Akkad, who I think was Nimrod, is still dated too early, though (c. 2254–2218 BC) for Abram, and will need (along with Menes) some chronological lowering. Some conservative Christians again, including Dr. David Down already mentioned, have suggested that the glorious Giza Pyramid-building Age of Egypt’s Fourth Dynasty (c. 2615 to 2495 BC) was the most appropriate time for Abram in Egypt. Matt McClellan has written of this estimation in his article for Answers in Genesis, “Abraham and the Chronology of Ancient Mesopotamia”: https://answersingenesis.org/bible-timeline/abraham-and-the-chronology-of-ancient-mesopotamia/ However, there have been a number of scholars who have come out against the standard chronology in the recent past. …. There has been a concentrated effort to use this new research in ancient chronology to correlate biblical events with Egyptian chronology. Two separate studies have dated Abraham to sometime during the Early Dynastic or the Old Kingdom periods in Egypt. John Ashton and David Down (2006) have dated him to the Fourth Dynasty while this author (McClellan 2011, p. 155) has given a range of dates from the 2nd–6th Dynasties. …. Placing Abraham in this earlier period in Egyptian history also forces Abraham to be dated significantly earlier in Mesopotamian history. (Ur III and Isin-Larsa correspond to the Middle Kingdom in Egypt, and that time aligns better with the Mosaic period than with Abraham’s.) If Abraham is to be dated earlier in Mesopotamian history then in what period did Abraham live in Mesopotamia? What is interesting about the quote by Kitchen above is that he notes that there was another period in Mesopotamian history in which a coalition of kings could have existed; that is, the period before the Akkadian Empire. What is more interesting is that this is the time period that Freedman dated Abraham. So one has to ask whether or not this period could be the setting for Abraham’s life? …. While Matt McClellan is perfectly correct in commenting that “the Middle Kingdom in Egypt … aligns better with the Mosaic period than with Abraham’s”, Ur III, which actually belongs to the time of King Solomon, is irrelevant to both Abraham and Moses. There is some fairly solid tradition that associates Abram with Menes. But what about Nebkaure Khety? How might he connect with Menes? Both Dr. David Rohl and I had, some years ago now, and quite independently, concluded that Abram’s Pharaoh was a Khety (I had Khety III, and he had Khety IV). David Rohl had picked up the important clue that the Classical author, Pliny had called Abram’s Pharaoh Nebkare, close enough to Nebkaure (Khety). Pharaoh and Sarai One of the things that he inclined me to connect Pharaoh Khety with Abram were the words that the ruler of Egypt had uttered in Admonitions to his son, Merikare, that made me think of the Sarai incident that was not entirely the Pharaoh’s fault. Here is what I wrote on this previously: If the so-called Tenth Dynasty were really to be located this early in time … then this would have had major ramifications for any attempted reconstruction of Egyptian history. Having Abram’s Egyptian ruler situated in the Tenth Dynasty did fit well with my view then, at least, that Joseph, who arrived on the scene about two centuries after Abraham, had belonged to the Eleventh Dynasty (as well as to the Third, as Imhotep). Although I would later drop from my revision the notion of Khety (be he II, III or IV) as Abraham’s king of Egypt - not being able to connect him securely to the Old Kingdom era - I am now inclined to return to it. Previously I had written on this: So far, however, I have not been able to establish any compelling link between the 1st and 10th Egyptian dynasties (perhaps Aha “Athothis” in 1 can connect with “Akhthoes” in 10). Nevertheless, that pharaoh Khety appears to have possessed certain striking likenesses to Abram’s [king] has not been lost on David Rohl as well, who, in From Eden to Exile: The Epic History of the People of the Bible (Arrow Books, 2003), identified the “Pharaoh” with Khety (Rohl actually numbers him as Khety IV). And he will further incorporate the view of the Roman author, Pliny, that Abram’s “Pharaoh” had a name that Rohl considers to be akin to Khety’s prenomen: Nebkaure. …. There is a somewhat obscure incident in 10th dynasty history, associated with … Wahkare Khety III and the nome of Thinis, that may possibly relate to the biblical incident [of “Pharaoh” and Abram’s wife]. It should be noted firstly that Khety III is considered to have had to restore order in Egypt after a general era of violence and food shortage, brought on says N. Grimal by “the onset of a Sahelian climate, particularly in eastern Africa” [A History of Ancient Egypt, Blackwell, 1994, p. 139]. Moreover, Khety III’s “real preoccupation was with northern Egypt, which he succeeded in liberating from the occupying populations of Bedouin and Asiatics” [ibid., p. 145]. Could these eastern nomads have been the famine-starved Syro-Palestinians of Abram’s era - including the Hebrews themselves - who had been forced to flee to Egypt for sustenance? And was Khety III referring to the Sarai incident when, in his famous Instruction addressed to his son, Merikare, he recalled, in regard to Thinis (ancient seat of power in Egypt): Lo, a shameful deed occurred in my time: The nome of This was ravaged; Though it happened through my doing, I learned it after it was done. [Emphasis added] Cf. Genesis 12:17-19: But the Lord afflicted Pharaoh and his house with great plagues because of Sarai .... So Pharaoh called Abram, and said, ‘What is this you have done to me? Why did you not tell me that she was your wife? Why did you say, ‘She is my sister’? so that I took her for my wife? Now then, here is your wife, take her, and be gone’. When the Egyptian dynasties are taken not in single file, there occurs a nice symmetry: Abraham (dynasties 1 and 10) Joseph (dynasties 3 and 11) Moses (dynasties 4 and 12) It may now be possible to propose some (albeit tenuous) links between the era of Khety and what is considered to be the far earlier Old Kingdom period to which I would assign Abraham. N. Grimal refers to another Aha (that being the name of Abraham’s proposed contemporary, Hor-Aha) as living at the same time as Khety II. If Menes Hor-Aha (‘Min’) had really reigned for more than sixty years (Manetho-Africanus), then he is likely to have accumulated many other names and titles. …. Menes (‘Min’) Hor-Aha ‘Athothis’ would connect with Nebkaure Khety, or Akhtoes, perhaps through Athothis-Akthoes. Abram’s Pharaoh fits Menes Hor-Aha as being a very long-reigning monarch. I have not only identified the Pharaoh-Sarai incident (Genesis 12:10-20) with the later narrated Abimelech-Sarah incident (20:1-18), using toledôt arguments for the same incident but different authors, but I have further stretched this long-reigning ruler, Pharaoh-Abimelech, to include the somewhat similar Abimelech-Rebekah incident at the time of Isaac (26:1-11). It is notable that the once robust Pharaoh, who had coveted Sarai-Sarah, was now, at an older phase, warning about “one of the men” maybe coveting Rebekah (v. 10). Regarding my identification of Pharaoh with Abimelech, a colleague has pointed out that a chiasmus unites these two entities – a possible clue that this was one and the same person. It can also be shown archaeologically that Egypt had, at this time, encroached into southern Canaan, thereby accounting for why the Pharaoh is also called, as Abimelech, “king of the Philistines in Gerar” (v. 1). Finally, I have most tentatively suggested that Abimelech may have been the same as Mizraim’s (Egypt’s) son, the like-named Lehabim (c f. Genesis 10:13; I Chronicles 1:11). THE FOUR KINGS INVADE CANAAN Since Dr. J. Osgood, and he alone, has completely nailed the archaeology here, there is no need to do any more here than simply to quote the relevant part of his article, “The Times of Abraham”. Dr. Osgood, having archaeologically traced the invasion of the four kings to Late Chalcolithic En-gedi, writes: http://creation.com/the-times-of-abraham The remarkable thing about this [Late Chalcolithic] culture also was that it was very similar, if not the same culture, to that found at a place in the southern Jordan Valley called Taleilat Ghassul (which is the type site of this culture), and also resembles the culture of Beersheba. The culture can in fact be called ‘Ghassul culture’ and specifically Ghassul IV. The Ghassul IV culture disappeared from Trans Jordan, Taleilat Ghassul and Beersheba and the rest of the Negev as well as from Hazezon-tamar or En-gedi apparently at the same time. It is remarkable when looked at on the map that this disappearance of the Ghassul IV culture corresponds exactly to the areas which were attacked by the Mesopotamian confederate of kings. The fact that En-gedi specifically terminates its culture at this point allows a very positive identification of this civilization, Ghassul IV, with the Amorites of Hazezon-tamar. If that be the case, then we can answer Bar Adon’ question very positively. The reason the people did not return to get their goods was that they had been destroyed by the confederate kings of Mesopotamia, in approximately 1,870 B.C. in the days of Abraham. Now as far as Palestine is concerned, in an isolated context, this may be possible to accept, but many might ask: What about the Mesopotamian kings themselves? Others may ask: What does this do to Egyptian chronology? And still further questions need to be asked concerning the origin of the Philistines in the days of Abraham, for the Philistines were closely in touch with Abraham during this same period (Genesis 20). So we must search for evidence of Philistine origins or habitation at approximately the end of the Chalcolithic (Ghassul IV) in Palestine. All these questions will be faced. …. [End of quote] Much earlier than the MBI age, when the Exodus Israelites were wandering in the wilderness, four … kings swept through the Palestine of Abram’s (Abraham’s) day, destroying the Late Chalcolithic phase of En-gedi and the contemporaneous Amorite Ghassul IV culture which now ceased to exist. Dr. Osgood had also provided us with a corresponding archaeology for the Egypt of Abram’s day, the Gerzean culture, or Naqadah II. The following sections from Dr. Osgood’s “The Times of Abraham”, which encompass both the Egyptian and Philistine scenarios relevant to Abraham, are replete with archaeological syncretisms beneficial to my reconstruction here: But Egypt! At this stage there will be many objections to the hypothesis here presented, for it is totally contradictory to the presently held Egyptian chronology of the ancient world. However, I would remind my reader that the Egyptian chronology is not established, despite claims to the contrary. It has many speculative points within it. Let us continue to see if there is any correspondence, for if Abraham was alive in the days of the Ghassul IV culture, then he was alive in the days of the Gerzean culture of pre-Dynastic Egypt, possibly living into the days of the first Dynasty of Egypt. The correspondence between this period in Palestine and in Egypt is very clear, and has been solidly established, particularly by the excavations at Arad by Ruth Amiram10 and at Tel Areini by S. Yeivin.11 Such a revised chronology as here presented would allow Abraham to be in contact with the earliest kings of Dynasty I and the late pre-Dynastic kings, and this would slice a thousand years off the presently held chronology of Egypt. To many the thought would be too radical to contemplate. The author here insists that it must be contemplated. Only so will the chronology of the ancient world be put into proper perspective. Long as the task may take, and however difficult the road may be, it must be undertaken. In order to support the present revised chronology here held, the author sites another correspondence archaeologically, and this concerns both the Philistines and Egypt. The Philistine Question Genesis 20 makes it clear that Abraham was in contact with the Philistines, yet the accepted chronological record presently held does not recognise Philistines being in the land of Philistia at any time corresponding with the days of Abraham. Yet the Bible is adamant. The Scripture is clear that the Philistines were in Canaan by the time of Abraham, approximately 1850 B.C., or at least around the area of Gerar between Kadesh and Shur (Genesis 20:1), and Beersheba (Genesis 21:321) (see Figure 9). A king called Abimelech was present, and his military chief was Phicol (Genesis 21:22). …. We have placed the end of the Chalcolithic of the Negev, En-gedi, Trans Jordan and Taleilat Ghassul at approximately 1870 B.C., being approximately at Abraham’ 80th year. Early Bronze I Palestine (EB I) would follow this, significantly for our discussions. Stratum V therefore at early Arad (Chalcolithic) ends at 1870 B.C., and the next stratum, Stratum IV (EB I), would begin after this. Stratum IV begins therefore some time after 1870 B.C.. This is a new culture significantly different from Stratum V.112 Belonging to Stratum IV, Amiram found a sherd with the name of Narmer (First Dynasty of Egypt),10, 13 and she dates Stratum IV to the early part of the Egyptian Dynasty I and the later part of Canaan EB I. Amiram feels forced to conclude a chronological gap between Stratum V (Chalcolithic) at Arad and Stratum IV EB I at Arad. …. However, this is based on the assumption of time periods on the accepted scale of Canaan’ history, long time periods which are here rejected. The chronological conclusion is strong that Abraham’ life-time corresponds to the Chalcolithic in Egypt, through at least a portion of Dynasty I of Egypt, which equals Ghassul IV through to EB I in Palestine. The possibilities for the Egyptian king of the Abrahamic narrative are therefore:- 1. A late northern Chalcolithic king of Egypt, or 2. Menes or Narmer, be they separate or the same king (Genesis 12:10-20). [End of quote] So far, I have identified Abram’s (Abraham) Akkadian and Egyptian contemporaries: Nimrod (= Sargon of Akkad/Naram-Sin), conqueror of pharaoh Menes Hor-Aha (Nebkaure Khety). Nimrod is also Amraphel king of Shinar (14:1). Narmer may be either Naram-Sin, or Chedorlaomer of Elam. Genesis 14:1-4 introduces the four coalitional kings, and goes on to name the five kings of Pentapolis: At the time when Amraphel was king of Shinar, Arioch king of Ellasar, Chedorlaomer king of Elam and Tidal king of Goyim, these kings went to war against Bera king of Sodom, Birsha king of Gomorrah, Shinab king of Admah, Shemeber king of Zeboyim, and the king of Bela (that is, Zoar). All these latter kings joined forces in the Valley of Siddim (that is, the Dead Sea Valley). For twelve years they had been subject to Chedorlaomer, but in the thirteenth year they rebelled. The mighty Amraphel (Nimrod), first mentioned here, may initially have ruled the other three as subordinate kings, in the sense that a later Assyrian monarch will declare (Isaiah 10:8): “Are not my commanders [governors] all kings?” But legend has Chedorlaomer conquering Amraphel and assuming overall leadership, and this may be reflected in real history. The great Elamite king, Kutik-Inshushinak, allied to Naram-Sin, later won a victory over Akkad. He would be my candidate for the biblical Chedorlaomer. Someone has written on this, on Kutik-[Puzur]-Inshushinak: So, could Kutik-Inshushinak be Chedor-laomer? Last night I checked on the internet for Inshushinak and Lagamar. It seems these are both Elamite dieties [sic] of the underworld. Not hard to see them interchanged. Since Kutik can also be Puzur, then that closing k and the closing r can match -- the opening K can readily match the opening hard Ch -- and if the middle t can be a hard z, then that t is not a strong t, and thus not difficult to connect to a d sound. So Kutik-Inshushinak is not incompatible with Chedor-Lagamar -- Chedorlaomer of Genesis 14. The land of Elam had seemed to me to be well too far away from Canaan for a king from there to keep the Pentapolitan kings in submission for “twelve years”. Royce (Richard) Erickson unwittingly came to the rescue when he wrote a brilliant article (2020), shifting the whole land of Elam far, far to the NW: A PROBLEM IN CHALDAEAN AND ELAMITE GEOGRAPHY https://www.academia.edu/44674697/A_PROBLEM_IN_CHALDAEAN_AND_ELAMITE_GEOGRAPHY None of the four invading kings was Mesopotamian (Dr. Osgood’s “confederate kings of Mesopotamia”, above). Possibly “Tidal king of Goyim”, for instance, was, like Sisera of the later Judges period (Judges 4:2), a military governor for the coalition stationed at Harosheth Haggoyim in what would later become northern Israel.