Huram-Abi King of Artisans

 

by

 

 Damien F. Mackey

 

 

 

Explores the possibility that the biblical Huram-abi was King Hammurabi.

 

 

Abrahamic Connection

 

Hammurabi’s possible Amorite ancestry, tracing back to Abraham, might account for why we have been finding that the great king had been so influenced by Hebrew Law and protocol.

Herb Storck has shown, in an important article “The Early Assyrian King List ... and the ‘Greater Amorite’ Tradition” (Proc. of the 3rd Seminar of Catastrophism & Ancient History, C & AH Press, Toronto, 1986, p. 43), that there is a genealogical link among:

 

(i) Abraham;

(ii) the genealogy of king Hammurabi; and

(iii) the Assyrian King List.

 

Storck commences his article with the following explanation:

The Assyrian Kinglist (AKL) is one of the most important chronographic texts ever uncovered. Initially it was thought to represent a long unbroken tradition of rulership over Assyria. A closer look at the AKL by Benno Landsberger (1890-1968) ... however, dispelled this somewhat facile approach to AKL tradition. Subsequent studies by Kraus ... and Finkelstein ... have demonstrated a common underlying Amorite tradition between parts of the AKL and the Genealogy of Hammurapi (GHD). Portions of this section of the AKL containing 17 tent-dwelling kings have also been compared to biblical ... and Ugaritic ... Amorite traditions.

 

Storck’s purpose will be “to take a closer look at the 17 Assyrian tent dwellers and the greater Amorite tradition, as evidenced primarily in the genealogy of the Hammurapi [Hammurabi] Dynasty and other minor traditions”. The names of all 17 tent-dwelling kings are preserved in various lists. What is striking is that many of these names can be linked with names in the GHD, which gives the names in couplet form. Thus, for example, names 3 and 4, Janqi (Janqu) and Sahlamu are given in GHD as Ya-am-qu-us-ha-lam-ma. Name 11, Zuabu, may be connected with Sumuabi, an ancestor of Hammurabi. Thus Storck:

Poebel sought to connect the name with Su-mu-a-bi, the name of the first king of the first dynasty of Babylon, even though in our list it is written with the sign ZU. .... Kraus, however, expressed his personal doubts as to whether this would work .... But in a recently published fragment of this portion of the AKL (E) this name was indeed written with an initial SU for ZU, thus supporting Poebel's contention somewhat. “Nevertheless, the genealogy edited by J.J. Finkelstein has Zu-um-ma-bu in the apparently parallel line, hinting that the reverse may be the case. The presence of ma as restored eases the interpretation of the name Sumu-abu” ....

 

Storck concluded the first part of his study by claiming that: “Nine of the 17 tent-dwelling AKL kings can reasonably be identified with GHD ancestors of Hammurapi. This would appear to be sufficient to establish that these two genealogies drew upon a common ‘Amorite’ tradition”.

That there was still that nomadic inclination within the kings of the Hammurabic era may perhaps be gleaned from the fact that Shamsi-Adad I of that time had no really fixed capital, but moved from place to place.

And we have found that Iarim-Lim (Hiram), though stationed in the west, had a political reach that extended all the way to Elam.

 

Who Was Hammurabi?

 

Who, then, was this Hammurabi, likely a non-indigenous ruler of Babylon, of Amorite, or northern Canaanite background, who had deepy absorbed Hebrew traditions and culture, and who was contemporaneous with the biblical King Hiram (Iarim-Lim) and, hence, with David and Solomon of Israel?

The most likely candidate for Hammurabi, I now think, would be that famous biblical artisan of very similar name, Huram-abi (Hiram-abi) - the fabled Hiram Abiff of the Freemasons - who was probably somewhat younger than King David, but older than King Solomon.

King Hiram had told Solomon (2 Chronicles 2:13-14):

 

‘I am sending you Huram-Abi, a man of great skill, whose mother was from Dan and whose father was from Tyre. He is trained to work in gold and silver, bronze and iron, stone and wood, and with purple and blue and crimson yarn and fine linen. He is experienced in all kinds of engraving and can execute any design given to him. He will work with your skilled workers and with those of my lord, David your father’.

 

From I Kings 7:13, it appears that Huram-abi was located in Tyre at the time: “King Solomon sent to Tyre and brought Huram …”. Tyre would, of course, be a geographical problem obstructing an identification of Huram-abi with Hammurabi the king of Babylon.

Could he have become king of Babylon later? That is only surmise. But also see comments above re Shamsi-Adad I’s nomadic tendencies and Iarim-Lim’s power. Plus, our knowledge of Hammurabi’s Babylon is seriously disadvantaged by the high water table in Babylon at that archaeological level, preventing excavation.

I Kings 7:14 gives a variation on 2 Chronicles’ account of Huram-abi’s mother, “from Dan”, by telling us that his “mother was a widow from the tribe of Naphtali”.  

That Huram-abi was a man with the technical skills necessary to assist King Solomon is abundantly apparent from the continuing narrative of I Kings 14:14-50:

 

Huram was filled with wisdom, with understanding and with knowledge to do all kinds of bronze work. He came to King Solomon and did all the work assigned to him.

He cast two bronze pillars, each eighteen cubits high and twelve cubits in circumference. He also made two capitals of cast bronze to set on the tops of the pillars; each capital was five cubits high. A network of interwoven chains adorned the capitals on top of the pillars, seven for each capital. He made pomegranates in two rows encircling each network to decorate the capitals on top of the pillars. He did the same for each capital. The capitals on top of the pillars in the portico were in the shape of lilies, four cubits high. On the capitals of both pillars, above the bowl-shaped part next to the network, were the two hundred pomegranates in rows all around. He erected the pillars at the portico of the Temple. The pillar to the south he named Jakin and the one to the north Boaz. The capitals on top were in the shape of lilies. And so the work on the pillars was completed.

He made the Sea of cast metal, circular in shape, measuring ten cubits from rim to rim and five cubits high. It took a line of thirty cubits to measure around it. Below the rim, gourds encircled it—ten to a cubit. The gourds were cast in two rows in one piece with the Sea.

The Sea stood on twelve bulls, three facing north, three facing west, three facing south and three facing east. The Sea rested on top of them, and their hindquarters were toward the center. It was a handbreadth in thickness, and its rim was like the rim of a cup, like a lily blossom. It held two thousand baths.

He also made ten movable stands of bronze; each was four cubits long, four wide and three high. This is how the stands were made: They had side panels attached to uprights. On the panels between the uprights were lions, bulls and cherubim—and on the uprights as well. Above and below the lions and bulls were wreaths of hammered work. Each stand had four bronze wheels with bronze axles, and each had a basin resting on four supports, cast with wreaths on each side. On the inside of the stand there was an opening that had a circular frame one cubit deep. This opening was round, and with its basework it measured a cubit and a half. Around its opening there was engraving. The panels of the stands were square, not round. The four wheels were under the panels, and the axles of the wheels were attached to the stand. The diameter of each wheel was a cubit and a half. The wheels were made like chariot wheels; the axles, rims, spokes and hubs were all of cast metal. Each stand had four handles, one on each corner, projecting from the stand. At the top of the stand there was a circular band half a cubit deep. The supports and panels were attached to the top of the stand. He engraved cherubim, lions and palm trees on the surfaces of the supports and on the panels, in every available space, with wreaths all around. This is the way he made the ten stands. They were all cast in the same molds and were identical in size and shape.

He then made ten bronze basins, each holding forty baths and measuring four cubits across, one basin to go on each of the ten stands. He placed five of the stands on the south side of the Temple and five on the north. He placed the Sea on the south side, at the southeast corner of the Temple. He also made the pots and shovels and sprinkling bowls.

So Huram finished all the work he had undertaken for King Solomon in the Temple of the Lord:

 

the two pillars;

the two bowl-shaped capitals on top of the pillars;

the two sets of network decorating the two bowl-shaped capitals on top of the pillars;

the four hundred pomegranates for the two sets of network (two rows of pomegranates for each network decorating the bowl-shaped capitals on top of the pillars);

the ten stands with their ten basins;

the Sea and the twelve bulls under it;

the pots, shovels and sprinkling bowls.

All these objects that Huram made for King Solomon for the Temple of the Lord were of burnished bronze. The king had them cast in clay molds in the plain of the Jordan between Sukkoth and Zarethan. Solomon left all these things unweighed, because there were so many; the weight of the bronze was not determined.

Solomon also made all the furnishings that were in the Lord’s Temple:

the golden altar;

the golden table on which was the bread of the Presence;

the lampstands of pure gold (five on the right and five on the left, in front of the inner sanctuary);

the gold floral work and lamps and tongs;

the pure gold basins, wick trimmers, sprinkling bowls, dishes and censers;

and the gold sockets for the doors of the innermost room, the Most Holy Place, and also for the doors of the main hall of the Temple.

 

If Hammurabi were Huram-abi, then it would be no wonder that he dealt in bonze and that he favoured artisans and craftsmen, and that he imported his wood from Lebanon  (http://www.fsmitha.com/h1/ch03-ham.htm):

 

Babylon was a city where trade routes crossed. Under Hammurabi it became a bronze-age city of commerce and agriculture. It was a city with skilled artisans, architects, bricklayers and businessmen, with an efficient secular administration and a chain of command. The city was at the hub of an intricate network of canals. It was surrounded by great fields of barley, melons, fruit trees and the wheat the Babylonians used in making unleavened, pancake-like bread. From their barley, the Babylonians made beer. They sheared wool from their flocks of sheep. And they imported wood from Lebanon and metals from Persia.

 

Hammurabi was a king of artisans: (https://prezi.com/uuaatljvjity/ancient-mesopotamia/): “Hammurabi had artisans carve almost 300 laws into a stone stele. This writing is now known as Hammurabi's code”, with rules for artisans:

 

188. If an artisan take a son for adoption and teach him his handicraft, one may not bring claim for him.

 

189. If he do not teach him his handicraft, that adopted son may return to his father's house.

 

274. If a man hire an artisan, the wage of a … is 5 SE of silver; the wage of a brickmaker (?) is 5 SE of silver; the wage of a tailor is 5 SE of silver; the wage of a … is … SE of silver; the wage of a … is … SE of silver; the wage of a … is … SE of silver; the wage of a carpenter is 4 SE of silver; the wage of a (?) is 4 SE of silver; the wage of a (?) is … SE of silver; the wage of a mason is … SE of silver; so much per day shall he pay.

 

According to: http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/txt/ah/Assyria/Hammurabi.html “craftsmen” (artisans) occupied the highest class in Babylon:

 

The Code contemplates the whole population as falling into three classes, the amelu, the muskinu and the ardu. The amelu was a patrician, the man of family, whose birth, marriage and death were registered, of ancestral estates and full civil rights. He had aristocratic privileges and responsibilities, the right to exact retaliation for corporal injuries, and liability to heavier punishment for crimes and misdemeanours, higher fees and fines to pay. To this class belonged the king and court, the higher officials, the professions and craftsmen.

 

M. van de Mieroop (The Ancient Mesopotamian City, p. 179) writes of ‘most craftsmen being employed by palaces and temples’ (reminiscent of the case of Solomon and Huram-abi):

 

The specialized class of artisans needed to be exempt from the tasks of primary food production, and this was only possible in an urban economy. It is clear that craft specialization took place in the early stages of the development of urban society, and that the sustainable size of the class of craftsmen was directly related to the size of the urban economy. It is often stated in current literature that, at least until the late second millennium Bc [sic], most craftsmen were employed by the central institutions of palace and temples, as only these rich organizations were able to support them ….

Fr Jean Carmignac dates Gospels early

by

Damien F. Mackey 

“The Benedictus, the song of Zachary, is given in Luke 1:68-79. In Greek, as in English, the Benedictus, as poetry, seems unexceptional. There is no evidence of clever composition. But, when it is translated into Hebrew, a little marvel appears”.

Introduction

Astute scholars such as Jean Carmignac, John Robinson and Claude Tresmontant have breathed some refreshingly healthy new air into biblical studies by arguing for much earlier dates than conventionally accepted for the various books of the New Testament, and, in Carmignac’s case, for the Greek texts of the Synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke), in particular, to have arisen from Semitic originals.
And I personally would favour Robinson’s view, too, that the entire New Testament was written before the Fall of Jerusalem, in c. 70 AD.
The following brief article summarises Carmignac’s ground-breaking efforts – including his wonderful reinterpretation of the “Song of Zachary” – and it also makes references to the research of Robinson and Tresmontant:
http://www.catholic.com/magazine/articles/were-the-synoptic-gospels-composed-in-hebrew

Were the Synoptic Gospels Composed in Hebrew?

Forget what Winston Churchill said about Russia being “a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.” Yes, it was a memorable line, but it should have been applied to modern biblical scholarship.

Here’s a field for those wanting to make a name for themselves, who want posterity to know about the Smith Hypothesis or the Jones Theory. You can come up with any idea you like, and you can do a sophisticated form of proof-texting establishing your thesis.

All you must do is cite in your notes the Usual Suspects–there are only two or three dozen names to get right–and Authority is on your side. Your work will become part of the “assured results of modern biblical scholarship.”

Unless, of course, you take an entirely new tack. Some things are simply off limits. People look down their noses at you, for instance, if you posit early dates for the authorship of the New Testament books.

Look at the cool reception the late John A. T. Robinson got when Redating the New Testament appeared in 1976. Robinson was already a well-respected scholar. More than that, he was a liberal scholar, founder of the New Morality school of thought, which started with his Honest to God.

But here he was, taking a fresh look at the presuppositions used in dating the New Testament books and realizing that the presuppositions were worthless. They were little more than prejudices.

He started from scratch and came up with the conclusion that every book of the New Testament was written prior to the fall of Jerusalem in A.D. 70. The Gospels of Matthew, Luke, and even John he put as early as the forties, which, if true, would pretty much prove that the men whose names their bear wrote them.

Redating the New Testament was politely but not, for the most part, enthusiastically reviewed in the scholarly journals. What could one expect? People who had staked their reputations on dating the New Testament as late as possible–even, parts of it, well into the second century–were displeased that someone not able to be classified as a reactionary should come up with answers Augustine would have been comfortable with.

Robinson “worked from an exclusively historical methodology,” wrote Jean Carmignac in The Birth of the Synoptics. “I work with a methodology which is principally philological but historical on occasion.” Carmignac, a Dead Sea Scrolls translator and an expert in the Hebrew in use at the time of Christ, reached conclusions similar to Robinson’s, but he came at the problem from a different angle.

He translated the synoptic Gospels “backwards,” from Greek into Hebrew, and he was astonished at what he found.

“I wanted to begin with the Gospel of Mark. In order to facilitate the comparison between our Greek Gospels and the Hebrew text of Qumran, I tried, for my own personal use, to see what Mark would yield when translated back into the Hebrew of Qumran.

“I had imagined that this translation would be difficult because of considerable differences between Semitic thought and Greek thought, but I was absolutely dumbfounded to discover that this translation was, on the contrary, extremely easy.

“Around the middle of April 1963, after only one day of work, I was convinced that the Greek text of Mark could not have been redacted directly in Greek and that it was in reality only the Greek translation of an original Hebrew.”

Carmignac, who died recently, had planned for enormous difficulties, but they didn’t arise. He discovered the Greek translator of Mark had slavishly kept to the Hebrew word order and grammar.

Could this have been the result of a Semite writing in Greek, a language he didn’t know too well and on which he imposed Hebrew structures? Or could the awkward phrasings found in our Greek text have been nothing more than overly faithful translations (perhaps “transliterations” would be more accurate) of Semitic originals?

If the second possibility were true, then we have synoptic Gospels written by eyewitnesses at a very early date.

Carmignac spent most of the next twenty-five years meticulously translating the Greek into Hebrew and making endless comparisons. The Birth of the Synoptics is a popular summary of what he hoped to publish in a massive multi-volume set. It is a delightful shocker of a book.

Consider just one example. (Carmignac gives many, but his short book isn’t weighed down with them.) The Benedictus, the song of Zachary, is given in Luke 1:68-79. In Greek, as in English, the Benedictus, as poetry, seems unexceptional. There is no evidence of clever composition. But, when it is translated into Hebrew, a little marvel appears.

In the phrase “to show mercy to our fathers,” the expression “to show mercy” is the Hebrew verb hanan, which is the root of the name Yohanan (John).

In “he remembers his holy covenant,” “he remembers” is the verb zakar, which is the root of the name Zakaryah (Zachary).

In “the oath which he swore to our father Abraham” is found, for “to take an oath,” the verb shaba, which is the root of the name Elishaba (Elizabeth).

“Is it by chance,” asks Carmignac, “that the second strophe of this poem begins by a triple allusion to the names of the three protagonists: John, Zachary, Elizabeth? But this allusion only exists in Hebrew; the Greek or English translation does not preserve it.”

Carmignac gives many other examples, and he draws these conclusions about the dating of the synoptics: “The latest dates that can be admitted are around 50 for Mark . . . around 55 for Completed Mark, around 55-60 for Matthew, between 58 and 60 for Luke. But the earliest dates are clearly more probable: Mark around 42, Completed Mark around 45, (Hebrew) Matthew around 50, (Greek) Luke a little after 50.”

These dates are all approximate, of course, particularly those for Mark and Matthew, and they are the result of Carmignac’s mainly philological analysis.

Claude Tresmontant, in The Hebrew Christ, working parallel to Carmignac but with a different methodology, comes up with these datings: Matthew, early 30s (within a few years of the Resurrection); Luke 40-60; Mark 50-60.

Carmignac keeps to Marcan priority, while Tresmontant goes for Matthean priority. Regardless, each denies what is the majority opinion among biblical scholars, that the synoptics were written late in the first century, possibly into the last decade or two.
Carmignac draws a few other conclusions:

“(1) It is certain that Mark, Matthew, and the documents used by Luke were redacted in a Semitic language.
“(2) It is probable that this Semitic language is Hebrew rather than Aramaic.
“(3) It is sufficiently probable that our second Gospel [that is, Mark] was composed in a Semitic language by St. Peter the Apostle” (with Mark being his secretary perhaps).

Expanding on this last point, he says that “it is probable that the Semitic Gospel of Peter was translated into Greek, perhaps with some adaptations by Mark, in Rome, at the latest around the year 63; it is our second Gospel which has preserved the name of the translator, instead of that of the author.”

As he wrote The Birth of the Synoptics, Carmignac suspected his “scientific arguments [would] prove reassuring to Christians and [would] attract the attention and interest of non-believers. But they overturn theories presently in vogue and therefore they will be fiercely criticized.” They will also be, with Carmignac’s death, fiercely ignored.

But not forever. Truly honest scholars will have to grapple with what Carmignac has come up with. Others will continue where he left off. It may be, a few decades from now, that the “assured results of modern biblical scholarship” will look quite different from what we have been told to accept as gospel truth.
— Karl Keating

Luke 1:68-79

New International Version (NIV)

“Praise be to the Lord, the God of Israel,
because he has come to his people and redeemed them.
 He has raised up a horn^[a] of salvation for us
in the house of his servant David
(as he said through his holy prophets of long ago),
salvation from our enemies
and from the hand of all who hate us—
to show mercy to our ancestors
and to remember his holy covenant,
the oath he swore to our father Abraham:
to rescue us from the hand of our enemies,
and to enable us to serve him without fear
in holiness and righteousness before him all our days.

And you, my child, will be called a prophet of the Most High;
for you will go on before the Lord to prepare the way for him,
to give his people the knowledge of salvation
through the forgiveness of their sins,
because of the tender mercy of our God,
by which the rising sun will come to us from heaven
to shine on those living in darkness
and in the shadow of death,
to guide our feet into the path of peace.”

The Magi embody all those who long for God, says Pope Francis

The magi and the Star of Bethlehem (Dreamstime)

by Junno Arocho Esteves

posted Friday, 6 Jan 2017

Pope Francis leaves in procession after celebrating Mass marking the feast of the Epiphany in St Peter's Basilica (CNS photo/Paul Haring) 

On the feast of the Epiphany Francis said the Wise Men were 'guided by an inner restlessness'

The Magi had the courage to set out on a journey in the hope of finding something new, unlike Herod who was full of himself and unwilling to change his ways, Pope Francis has said.
The Wise Men who set out from the East in search of Jesus personify all those who long for God and reflect “all those who in their lives have let their hearts be anaesthetised”, the Pope said on January 6, the feast of the Epiphany.
“The Magi experienced longing; they were tired of the usual fare. They were all too familiar with, and weary of, the Herods of their own day. But there, in Bethlehem, was a promise of newness, of gratuity,” he said.
Thousands of people were gathered in St Peter’s Basilica as the Pope entered to the sounds of the choir singing “Angels we have heard on high” in Latin. Before taking his place in front of the altar, the Pope stood in front of a statue of baby Jesus, spending several minutes in veneration before kissing it.
The Pope said that the Magi adoring the newborn king highlight two specific actions: seeing and worshipping.
Seeing the star of Bethlehem did not prompt them to embark on their journey but rather, “they saw the star because they had already set out,” he said.
“Their hearts were open to the horizon and they could see what the heavens were showing them, for they were guided by an inner restlessness. They were open to something new,” the Pope said.
This restlessness, he continued, awakens a longing for God that exists in the hearts of all believers who know “that the Gospel is not an event of the past but of the present.”
It is holy longing for God “that helps us keep alert in the face of every attempt to reduce and impoverish our life. A holy longing for God is the memory of faith, which rebels before all prophets of doom,” the Pope said.
Recalling the biblical figures of Simeon, the prodigal son, and Mary Magdalene, the Pope said this longing for God “draws us out of our iron-clad isolation, which makes us think that nothing can change”, and helps us seek Christ.
However, the figure of King Herod presents a different attitude of bewilderment and fear that, when confronted with something new, “closes in on itself and its own achievements, its knowledge, its successes”.
The quest of the Magi led them first to Herod’s palace that, although it befits the birth of king, is only a sign of “power, outward appearances and superiority. Idols that promise only sorrow and enslavement,” he said.
“There, in the palace, they did not see the star guiding them to discover a God who wants to be loved. For only under the banner of freedom, not tyranny, is it possible to realise that the gaze of this unknown but desired king does not abase, enslave, or imprison us,” the Pope said.

People in traditional attire endure cold weather during the annual parade marking the feast of the Epiphany in St Peter’s Square (CNS photo/Paul Haring)

Unlike the Magi, the Pope added, Herod is unable to worship the newborn king because he was unwilling to change his way of thinking and “did not want to stop worshipping himself, believing that everything revolved around him”.
Christians are called to imitate the wise men who, “weary of the Herods of their own day,” set out in search of the promise of something new.
“The Magi were able to worship, because they had the courage to set out. And as they fell to their knees before the small, poor and vulnerable infant, the unexpected and unknown child of Bethlehem, they discovered the glory of God,” the Pope said.
After the Mass, Pope Francis greeted tens of thousands of people gathered in St Peter’s Square to celebrate the feast of the Epiphany.
A colourful parade led by the sounds of trumpets and drums, people dressed in traditional and festive clothing contributed to the cheerful atmosphere despite the chilly weather.
Explaining the significance of the Wise Men who presented their gifts to Christ after adoring him, the Pope gave the crowds a gift: a small booklet of reflections on mercy.
The book, entitled “Icons of Mercy”, presents “six Gospel episodes that recall the experience of people transformed by Jesus’s love: the sinful woman, Zacchaeus, Matthew, the publican, the Samaritan, the good thief and the apostle Peter. Six icons of mercy,” the papal almoner’s office said.
Together with the homeless, poor men and women and refugees, religious men and women distributed the books to the crowd. As a thank you, Pope also offered more than 300 homeless men and women sandwiches and drinks.

....
Taken from: http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/news/2017/01/06/the-magi-embody-all-those-who-long-for-god-says-pope-francis/