by
Damien
F. Mackey
“If they had struck out on
their own, one would expect the Simeonites to found a martial city or nation of
their own…in other words, a city-state just like Sparta”.
Steven M. Collins
This is Steven M. Collins commenting on that
intriguing Maccabean text (I Maccabees 12) in which the King of Sparta claims
that his people are related to the Jews via Abraham (2-21): “King Arius of Sparta to Onias the High Priest,
greetings. We have found a
document about the Spartans and the Jews indicating that we are related and
that both of our nations are descended from Abraham”, that coupled with Collins’s
theory that the Spartans were actually Simeonites.
Given my view that the Battle of Thermopylae -
which is clearly a fictitious and highly exaggerated pseudo-historical incident
- is heavily based upon the drama of the Book of Judith:
Not so 'Hot Gates' of Thermopylae
but also has elements taken from other parts of
the Bible, example Gideon’s 300 (Judges 7:7),
then the notion of ‘Simeonites founding a martial
city’ would not be entirely incorrect.
For the city of Judith, “Bethulia”, which is
Shechem (as according to Charles C. Torrey):
was, at least to some degree, a Simeonite
stronghold.
Whether or not the Spartans, related to Abraham,
were also real Israelites (or Jews), though, is quite a different matter.
Steven M. Collins writes (Sep 17, 2018):
THE SPARTAN ISRAELITES WHO HALTED THE PERSIAN EMPIRE
....
Many readers have, no doubt, seen the movie, 300, starring
Gerard Butler which was released a number of years ago. It tells the inspiring
story of King Leonidas of Sparta, who led 300 of his Spartan warriors to the
pass at Thermopylae circa 480 BC to block the path of the immense Persian army
under Xerxes that was descending upon Greece. Their noble sacrifice in the
battle of Thermopylae inspired all of Greece and bought time for the various
city-states to organize a resistance to the Persian invasion. The
aforementioned movie is drenched in graphic and bloody combat scenes and is
outlandish at times (especially in its portrayal of Xerxes), but the
self-sacrifice of the martial Spartan detachment inspires people still today.
That movie also is laughably inaccurate in its portrayal of the Spartan
warriors, who are presented as soldiers who went to war with appropriate
armaments but dressed only in capes and leather loincloths. There was an
earlier movie, The 300 Spartans, released in 1961 starring Richard
Egan, which told the same story but it showed the Spartans dressed and armored
in a much more realistic manner. However, it dated to a time when Hollywood
presented war movies in a very sanitized way where the battle scenes were acted
out with very little blood being shown.
In both my books (available at the homepage of this website) and an article, I make the case that the
Spartan warriors were Israelites from the Israelite tribe of Simeon, which,
like the Spartans, was known for being warlike and ruthless.
According to the book of First Maccabees, a Spartan king
acknowledged in a letter to a Jewish High Priest that the Jews and Spartans
were “kinsmen” and fellow descendants of Abraham. If so, where is the historic
connection between the two groups of people? The Bible actually does offer us a
solid historical context where the Spartans could have originated from a group
of Israelites that branched off from the rest of the Israelite tribes. In the
book of Numbers, there are two separate censuses taken of the Israelite tribes
when they left Egypt. The first is in Numbers 1 and the second is in Numbers
26. The second census indicates that a majority of the tribe of Simeon left the
Israelite encampment right after a chief Simeonite prince was executed by a
Levite, Phineas, in Numbers 25. The context argues that Moses saw that so many
people had left the Israelite encampment at that time that he decided to call
for a second census to see how many had departed from the various tribes.
If they had struck out on their own, one would expect the
Simeonites to found a martial city or nation of their own…in other words, a
city-state just like Sparta. History records that the Spartans had a different
origin than the rest of the Greeks. The fact that the Spartan letter cited in I
Maccabees records that the Spartans regarded themselves as kinsmen of the Jews
and jointly descended from the patriarch, Abraham, is strong evidence that the
Spartans had to be from a fellow Israelite tribe, but where had they
originated? Since Numbers 25-26 confirms that most of the tribe of Simeon left
the Israelite wilderness encampment circa 1410 BC, it makes sense that this
warlike band of Simeonites would resurface later in history in a location other
than the Promised Land. The origin of the city-state of Sparta is unknown, but
it began to be noticed as an independent entity by at least the 11th or 10th
century BC. Years ago, I wrote an article about the Spartan connection to the
Israelite tribe of Simeon and I am including a link to
that article. I urge all readers with an interest
in history to read that article as it will enable you to see ancient Greek and
Mediterranean history in an entirely new light.
As a side-bar, I’d like to note that there was an earlier “Brave
Three Hundred” warrior group which was mentioned in the Bible. It is the
group of 300 warriors that accompanied the hero, Gideon, when he, like Leonidas
and his 300, fought against an immense army of invaders who came from the east
(circa 1150 BC). The story of Gideon and his brave 300 warriors is told in
Judges 6-7. Unlike Leonidas and his 300, Gideon and his 300 emerged victorious
over the eastern host albeit with God’s intervention to grant the victory.
Gideon and his 300 warriors were also Israelites. Leonidas and his 300 did not
emerge victorious although their noble sacrifice has been honored throughout
time. I cannot help but wonder how the story of Leonidas and his 300 holding
the narrow pass at Thermopylae would have ended if they had not been sabotaged
by a traitor who revealed a secret pass around the Spartan position to the
Persians. ....
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