Is El Amarna’s Aziru Biblically Identifiable? Part Two: Aziru of Papyrus Harris

 

by

Damien F. Mackey



 

What would have been an impossible connection according to Dr. I. Velikovsky’s radical reconstruction of Egypt’s New Kingdom - that El Amarna’s [EA’s] Aziru was the same person as the Aziru of the Papyrus Harris - becomes inevitable now according to my revision.

 

 

In Part One:

https://www.academia.edu/19589826/Is_El_Amarna_s_Aziru_Biblically_Identifiable

Dr. Velikovsky’s most impressive identification of El Amarna’s [EA’s] Aziru of Amurru as the biblical Hazael of Syria was confidently accepted.

This Aziru/Hazael I multi-identified in my university thesis:

 

A Revised History of the Era of King Hezekiah of Judah

and its Background

 

AMAIC_Final_Thesis_2009.pdf

 

including the following connection from my section, “Syria (Assyria) Comes to Egypt”, beginning on p. 226 of Volume One, and pre-supposing my further link, Hazael = Ay (Aye):

 

According to the relevant Egyptian documents, at least as I shall be interpreting them, the revolution against the Amarna régime came from outside Egypt (“from without”). It was led by Ay and Horemheb. The northern ‘Syrians’ had come to Egypt in full force. There are several historical documents that I think may recall this momentous event, wherein Ay (Hazael) is referred to by various of his many names:

 

(i) One is the ‘Great Papyrus Harris’ which tells of an ‘Aziru’ (var. Irsu, Arsa), thought to have been a Syrian, or perhaps a Hurrian. …. I have already followed

Velikovsky in identifying Hazael with EA’s Aziru; though Velikovsky, owing to the quirks of his revision, could not himself make the somewhat obvious (to my

mind) connection between EA’s Aziru and Aziru of the Great Papyrus Harris. ….

(ii) Another is the reference by Adad-nirari of Assyria to his ancestor Ashuruballit’s [Assuruballit’s] having subdued Egypt. I have already argued, too, that Ashuruballit was the ‘Assyrian’ face of our composite king, Hazael/Aziru.

 

These two cases (i) and (ii) are, according to my revision, references to the same ‘Syrian’ (Assyrian) subduer of Egypt, Ay/Hazael, who held power there as Chancellor and king maker, and finally, for a brief period, as pharaoh.

The Papyrus Harris is a most important document for the period now under consideration, the chaotic years immediately post-EA. But it is also important as an

introduction to the Ramessides, largely to be discussed in the next chapter, it being a retrospective glance back by so-called 20th dynasty Ramessides on those turbulent times. This very well-preserved papyrus, Rohl has called “the funeral scroll of Ramesses III” … the pharaoh famous for his land and sea war against the ‘Sea Peoples’, including the Philistines. It recalls an unhappy era for Egypt, followed by the overlordship there of a certain ‘Syrian’. And it commemorates Seti-nakht (Setnakhte), the father of Ramses III, who had restored order to Egypt.

 

Let us now consider the sequence of events as outlined in the papyrus, placing these in a revised scenario, whilst linking them to evidence from Tutankhamun’s ‘Restoration Stela’ (Karnak), which document I believe to be also recalling the same approximate era:

 

·          The first phase recorded by the papyrus was, I suspect, the wretched era of neglect and inactivity, especially for northern Egypt, of Akhnaton’s reign, as also recalled by Tutankhamun in his ‘Restoration Stela’, subsequent to the latter’s return to Memphis. There may also be a reference here to the foreign influence (“outsiders”) of the Akhmim Mafia. I give both texts below, beginning with the Papyrus Harris (as quoted by Rohl):

 

The land of Egypt was overthrown from without (i.e. by outsiders), and every (Egyptian) man was denied his right. They (the people) had no leader for many years. The land of Egypt was in the hands of chieftains and of rulers of towns. Each slew his neighbour, great and small.

 

The name of the ‘criminal’ and ‘heretic’ Akhnaton is completely absent in Manetho’s

king list. “According to the monuments”, wrote Courville … “Akhnaton was followed by the brief reigns of Tutenkhamen [Tutankhamun], Sakere [Smenkhare] and Eye [Ay]”.

And: “Manetho does not recognize any of these successors of Akhnaton …”.

Next, I give the relevant part of Tutankhamun’s stele, describing what I believe to have been the same wretched period (or its aftermath) as referred to in the Papyrus Harris: ….

 

Now when his majesty (Tutankhamun) appeared (i.e. was crowned) as king, the temples of the gods and goddesses from Elephantine (Aswan) [down] to the marshes of the delta [had been neglected and] fallen into ruin. Their shrines had become desolate and had become mounds overgrown with [weeds]. Their sanctuaries were as if they had never been. Their halls were a footpath. The land was in chaos and the gods turned their backs upon this land. If [soldiers were] sent to Djahi (the Levant) to extend the frontiers of Egypt, no success whatsoever came to them. …

 

This document was perhaps inspired by Horemheb (e.g. Doherty calls it ‘Horemheb’s

Manifesto’); … Horemheb having carved his name on it over Tutankhamun’s name.

 

·         The Papyrus Harris narrative continues on to the next phase, though closely connected to the first I believe, with the introduction of one ‘Aziru [the] Syrian’, or Hurrian, during those “empty years” (when the throne was considered effectively to have been vacant, or usurped). This Aziru I am convinced can only be EA’s Aziru (biblical Hazael). ….

 

(I have taken the liberty here of changing Rohl’s version of this person’s name, Arsa, to the equally acceptable variation of it, Aziru):

 

This was then followed by the empty years when [Aziru] – a certain Syrian – was with them as leader. He set the whole land tributary before him. He united his companions and plundered their (the Egyptians’) possessions. They made gods like men and no offerings were presented in the temple.

 

LeFlem, borrowing a phrase from Gardiner, has asked this question with reference to Aziru: … “Who was this so-called ‘Syrian condottiere’?” LeFlem’s question by now I think emphatically answers itself: he was EA’s Aziru! This was the foreign takeover of Egypt, an action of the Sinai commission, to depose the irresponsible Akhnaton and his régime and to re-establish ma'at (order, status quo). Though Aziru’s involvement was not necessarily so highly regarded by later Ramessides. Velikovsky has discussed the change of situation and its aftermath as follows, again with reference to ‘the Oedipus cycle’: ….

 

Whereas Akhnaton when on the throne assumed the appellation ‘Who liveth in truth’, Ay, upon becoming king, applied to himself the cognomen, ‘Who is doing right’. Such titles were rather unusual among the kings of Egypt. Yet one can understand Ay’s selecting this motto. Like Creon of the Oedipus cycle, Ay professed to be doing his duty to the crown and the nation by deposing Akhnaton, installing Akhnaton’s sons, and then siding with the younger son in the brothers’ conflict.

 

….

Rohl will, in his explanation of the name Arsa, by which he designates the ‘Syrian’ Aziru, even come to the conclusion - interesting in my context - that this name can be rendered as ‘Asa-el’, which is equivalent to Hazael; though Rohl himself will actually look to date this Arsa to the time of king Asa of Judah (early C9th BC, conventional dating). Here is Rohl’s account of this: ….

 

ARSA: also written Arsu or Irsu. However the hieroglyph usually transcribed as ‘u’ was invariably vocalised as ‘a’ (e.g. Hut-waret = Haware; Hut-Hor = Hathor).

 

The link between the Israelite Arsa and the Arsa of the Egyptian texts is intriguing but there is another identification possibility. The short name Asa could be a hypocoristicon of a longer nomen containing a theophoric element. The name Asa-el (‘El has made’) does occur in 2 Chronicles 17:8 …. The name Asa combined with the theophoric element El is attested at this time …. Asa, like the king of Damascus Hazael (Aramaean Haza-ilu) ….

[End of quote]

 

 

The Old Testament, not surprisingly, is entirely silent about any ‘Syrian’ or ‘Assyrian’

invasion of Egypt, though it does tell of Hazael at a later time fighting against Gath and even threatening Jerusalem itself, until king Joash [Jehoash] of Judah paid him off with all the votive offerings and gold upon which he could lay his hands, including the gold in the treasuries of the Temple (2 Kings 12:17-18). Presumably, Hazael was assisted in all this by his militant son Ben-Hadad II (cf. 13:3). ….

 

The next step will be explore the possibility of an Egyptian identification for Hazael/Aziru.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Is El Amarna’s “Son of Zuchru” Biblically Identifiable?

by

 Damien F. Mackey

 

The revision of Dr. Immanuel Velikovsky (Ages in Chaos, I, 1952), with its multiple biblico-historical identifications, cannot be easily brushed aside. A further striking correlation that he discovered between the Old Testament and El Amarna [EA], revised, is the identification of King Jehoshaphat of Judah’s captain, “son of Zichri”, with EA’s “son of Zuchru”.

 

 

Jehoshaphat of Judah, a king much blessed by Yahweh, was able to boast a formidable army, about which we read in 2 Chronicles 17:12-18:

 

Jehoshaphat became more and more powerful; he built forts and store cities in Judah and had large supplies in the towns of Judah. He also kept experienced fighting men in Jerusalem.  Their enrollment by families was as follows:

From Judah, commanders of units of 1,000:

Adnah the commander, with 300,000 fighting men;

 next, Jehohanan the commander, with 280,000;

next, Amasiah son of Zichri, who volunteered himself for the service of the Lord, with 200,000.

From Benjamin:

Eliada, a valiant soldier, with 200,000 men armed with bows and shields;

next, Jehozabad, with 180,000 men armed for battle.

 

 

In the Velikovskian archive we read this (http://www.varchive.org/ce/assuruballit.htm):

 

ONE VS. MANY LINKS

But if it were only a matter of evaluating my dating of the el-Amarna letters contra the conventional dating, we would use names alone. The list of identified persons in the el-Amarna letters in chapters of the Scriptures of the time of the middle of the ninth century, as presented in Ages in Chaos, is imposing. Among those names mentioned in both the letters and in the books of Kings and Chronicles are such unusual ones as Jehozabad, Adaja, Ben Zichri, Biridri, and many more. And is it little that, from five generals of king Jehoshaphat named by the Scriptures, four of them signed their letter by the very same names and one is referred to by his name?

Captains of Jehoshaphat	el-Amarna correspondents
Adnah (II Chr. 17:14)	Addudani (EA 292)
Son of Zichri (II Chr. 17:16)	Son of Zuchru (EA 334, 335)
Jehozabab (II Chr. 17:18)	Iahzibada (EA 275)
Adaia (II Chr. 23:1)	Addaia (EA 285, 287, 289)

Not only personal names, but dozens of parallels are found between the texts of those tablets and the scriptural narrative in the books of Kings and Chronicles, and also between them and the Assyrian texts of the ninth century. Events—down to the smallest details—were illuminated in the chapters dealing with el-Amarna: actions, wars, sieges, a seven-year famine, and geographical names were compared.

Although the el-Amarna correspondence covers only a few decades at the most, the many details that could be and have been brought to comparison lend an unshakeable support to the reconstruction of the larger period covering the time from the end of the Middle Kingdom to the time of the Ptolemies in Egypt, a span of twelve hundred years. Therefore, a single name, even were it to appear in the king lists and in the letters, would not amount to much without any support from the entire sum of evidence.

[End of quote]

 

Regarding Velikovsky’s intriguing connections for this era, I wrote in:

 

Bible Bending Pharaonic Egypt.

Part Two B: Rehoboam to Jehoram

 

https://www.academia.edu/11358194/Bible_Bending_Pharaonic_Egypt._Part_Two_B_Rehoboam_to_Jehoram

 

Velikovsky had discovered other striking correspondences as well between the supposed C14th BC history and the C9th BC biblical history, none more stunning, perhaps, than the “Son of Zuchru” [EA 334, 335] and the “Son of Zichri” (2 Chronicles 17:16).

Indeed, Velikovsky thought that the EA letters actually listed three of the military captains of king Jehoshaphat of Judah as given in vv. 14-18, namely, Addudani/Addadani = Adna [and Ada-danu mentioned by Shalmaneser III]; son of Zuchru; and Iahzibada = Iehozabad.

The fact that revisionists have since been able to establish such a host of convincing parallels between EA and the Divided Kingdom of Israel is sure proof, I think, of the correctness of Velikovsky’s radical re-setting of the conventional C14th BC era, even though Velikovsky’s actual theses therein have often needed to be modified, or, in some cases, thrown out.

[End of quote]

 

Whilst the accuracy of Velikovsky’s equating of the various captains of King Jehoshaphat with similarly-named EA officials may yet require further critical examination, one cannot but be struck by the singularity in the case of :

 

Son of Zichri (II Chr. 17:16)

Son of Zuchru (EA 334, 335)

  

Is El Amarna’s Rib-Addi Biblically Identifiable?

by

Damien F. Mackey

 

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Rib-Addi of Gubla was the most prominent of all the El Amarna correspondents.

Dr. Immanuel Velikovsky argued that this Rib-Addi was the biblical King Ahab of Israel.

Let us examine some of the evidence for this most sorely tried Amarna correspondent.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Introduction
 
The prolific El Amarna [EA] correspondent, Rib-Addi, gets early mention in my university thesis:

A Revised History of the Era of King Hezekiah of Judah

and its Background

AMAIC_Final_Thesis_2009.pdf

 

(Volume One, p. 52) as witness to a crucial chronological event:
A Solid Starting Point
 
We are now in the C9th BC, about 500 years after the well-documented EA period of the 18th dynasty pharaohs AMENHOTEP III (c. 1390-1352 BC) and AMENHOTEP IV [Akhnaton] (c. 1352-1348 BC), according to the Sothic chronology, but squarely within EA according to Velikovsky’s revision.135 Courville had accepted Velikovsky’s basic 18^th dynasty scenario, without adding much to it. My starting point here will be with what competent revisionists in the late 1970’s to early 1980’s, who had followed Velikovsky, considered to have been a most convincing aspect of Velikovsky’s EA restructuring: namely, his identification of the two chief EA correspondents from Amurru, Abdi-ashirta and Aziru, with two successive Syrian kings of the Old Testament in the C9th BC, respectively, Ben-Hadad I (c. 880-841 BC, conventional dates) and Hazael (c. 841-806 BC, conventional dates). Thus James had written, favourably: ….
With [these] two identifications [Velikovsky] seems to be on the firmest ground, in that we have a succession of two rulers, both of whom are characterised in the letters and the Scriptures as powerful rulers who made frequent armed excursions - and conquests - in the territories to the south of their own kingdom. In the letters their domain is described as “Amurru” - a term used, as Velikovsky has pointed out ... by Shalmaneser III for Syria in general, the whole area being dominated by the two successive kings in “both” the el-Amarna period and the mid-9th century.
From Assyrian evidence it is known that Hazael succeeded to the throne between 845 and 841 BC, and thus we have a reasonably precise floruit for those el-Amarna correspondents who relate the deeds of Abdi-Ashirta and Azaru [Aziru], particularly for Rib-Addi, whose letters report the death of Abdi-Ashirta and the accession of Azaru [Aziru].

[End of quote]

 
And, on the next page (p. 53), I referred to M. Sieff’s (of the perceptive “Glasgow School”) useful realignment of the great famine of Rib-Addi’s time with that at the time of the prophet Elisha:
These revisionists of the ‘Glasgow School’, as they became known, including Sieff, Gammon and others, were able, with a slight modification of Velikovsky’s dates, to re-set the EA period so that it sat more comfortably within its new C9th BC allocation. Thus
pharaoh Akhnaton, James argued, was a more exact contemporary of king Jehoram of
Judah (c. 848-841 BC, conventional dates) - and hence of the latter’s older contemporary, Jehoram of Israel (c. 853-841 BC, conventional dates) - rather than of Velikovsky’s choice of king Jehoshaphat (c. 870-848 BC, conventional dates), father of Jehoram of Judah and contemporary of king Ahab of Israel (c. 874-853 BC, conventional dates). …. Correspondingly, Sieff determined that: ….
The great famine of II Kings 8:1, found by Velikovsky to be a recurrent theme in the letters of Rib-Addi … was that of the time of Jehoram. The earlier drought of King Ahab’s time lasted 3½ years rather than 7 [cf. 1 Kings 17:1; Luke 4:25] … and was associated with the activities of Elijah, and not his successor Elisha, who figures in the famine of Ahab’s son.
With this relatively slight refinement in time, then the results could be quite stunning. James, for instance, found that the king of Jerusalem (Urusalim) for EA, Abdi-hiba, an
obviously polytheistic monarch, who had not identified well with the pious king Jehoshaphat of Jerusalem, Velikovsky’s biblical choice, however, matched Jehoshaphat’s son, Jehoram, down to the last detail.

[End of quote]

For more on Abdi-hiba as Jehoram of Judah, see my:

King Abdi-Hiba of Jerusalem Locked in as a ‘Pillar’ of Revised History

 

https://www.academia.edu/7772239/King_Abdi-Hiba_of_Jerusalem_Locked_in_as_a_Pillar_of_Revised_History

Rib-Addi had much to suffer from the belligerent kings of Amurru, Abdi-ashirta and Aziru, two kings whom I have multi-identified. See e.g. my:

Ben-Hadad I as El Amarna’s Abdi-ashirta = Tushratta

https://www.academia.edu/8713376/Ben-Hadad_I_as_El_Amarna_s_Abdi-ashirta_Tushratta

according to which Abdi-ashirta was also Tushratta of Mitanni. Now, the latter ruler figures in the next section of my thesis, greatly affecting the peace and well-being of Rib-Addi (p. 73):
Our composite king, of immense power, who as Tushratta would campaign as far northwest as Byblos, and was threatening even Simyra (Sumur) further north, according to Rib-Addi (EA’s 85:51ff. and 86:10ff.), seems to have been playing a double game with Egypt, forever protesting his loyalty, but always looking to extend his boundaries. Campbell, astonished at the extraordinary boldness of this action, sought for “... a way to explain a Mitannian raid into upper Syria sometime during the final years of Amenophis [Amenhotep] III, carried out by Tušratta while he was maintaining loyal friendship with Egypt”. But Campbell finally had to admit to having “no satisfactory explanation”. ….
Similarly, Abdi-Ashirta had been a continual threat to Rib-Addi’s region that included approximately the upper half of the modern Lebanese coastal plain, with Simyra, presumably the seat of the Egyptian rabis, at the northern boundary of his territory. And,
later, Aziru’s reign would prove completely disastrous for Rib-Addi, who would even lose his city to the invader.
At an early stage the king of Damascus (presumably allied with his many kings, ‘all the
major chieftains’), invaded Phoenicia. In a letter of Rib-Addi, we find this complaint:

LETTER 90: All the majors [chieftains] are one with Abdi-Ashirta.

This invasion must have occurred during the reign of Amenhotep III, not Akhnaton, because Rib-Addi would later remind the generally inactive Akhnaton of how his father
had intervened by sending archers up from Egypt. Rib-Addi repeated in several letters
that hostility against Sumur had become very great. We know from Rib-Addi’s letters that Abdi-Ashirta and his son, Aziru, did both attack his cities, and that he was wounded and nearly killed by the ‘Syrians’ (EA 81). Hence his good reason for concern.

[End of quote]

From there I went on to consider:

Some Proposed Biblical Identifications of Rib-Addi

1. Velikovsky: Rib-Addi as Ahab of Israel

 
I wrote (thesis, p. 83):
Now EA’s Lab’ayu, whom I shall be identifying with Ahab of Israel (c. 874-853 BC, conventional dates), appropriately straddles both part of Amenhotep III’s reign and the
early part of Akhnaton’s. Velikovsky, for his part, had, as already mentioned, looked to
identify Ahab with Rib-Addi of Gubla, the most prolific Syro-Palestine correspondent to
the EA pharaohs (over 50 letters in number). …And this was surely a big mistake. For, in order for him to ‘make’ Ahab, like Rib-Addi, a very old man at death, Velikovsky was
prepared to fly in the face of the biblical data and completely re-cast the chronology of
Ahab’s life. He had convinced himself that there existed a contradiction between the accounts of Ahab in Kings and Chronicles so that, as he claimed, Ahab did not die at the battle of Ramoth-gilead as is stated in 1 Kings 22 (cf. vv. 6, 29 & 37), but rather reigned on for a further 8-10 years. Thus, according to Velikovsky’s view, king Jehoram of Israel (c. 853-841 BC, conventional dates), never truly existed, but was a ghost.
From a biblical point of view, the fact that Rib-Addi had been able to report the death of
Abdi-Ashirta (Velikovsky’s Ben-Hadad I) meant that Velikovsky was quite wrong in identifying Rib-Addi with king Ahab; since Ahab’s death preceded that of Ben-Hadad (cf. 1 Kings 22:40 & 2 Kings 8:15). But this was Velikovsky in his favourite rôle as “the arbiter of history”, according to Sieff … forcing historical data to fit a pre-conceived idea. Velikovsky called this Rib-Addi king of Gubla and Sumur (var. Sumura) … which EA cities he had tried to equate with Ahab’s chief cities of, respectively, Jezreel and Samaria; though they are usually identified with the coastal cities of Byblos (Gebal) and
Simyra. Moreover, letters from Egypt may indicate that Sumur was not really Rib-Addi’s
concern at all. …. Velikovsky greatly confused the issue of Ahab of Israel for those coming after him, since Rib-Addi was chronologically and geographically unsuitable for
Ahab.

[End of quote]

1. Sieff and Liel: Rib-Addi as Jehoram of Israel

“Revisionists have since rightly rejected this part of Velikovsky’s EA reconstruction”, I went on to comment – specifically with the “Glasgow School” in mind. A more appropriate biblical candidate for Rib-Addi, a Glasgow contributor M. Sieff believed: “The Two Jehorams” (http://saturniancosmology.org/files/.cdrom/journals/review/v0203/86two.htm), was Ahab’s son,  Jehoram of Israel. And L. Liel would support this view, as I noted on pp. 83-84:
Liel favours this view from the perspective of her linguistic name studies. She has analysed the EA name, Rib-Addi, in the context of Israel’s Divided Monarchy - I have already discussed her treatise on the Addi element in the name (ADP) - and has come to the same conclusion as had Sieff, assisted by James, but in her case on name basis alone: ….
This king, whose name is read conventionally as Rib-Addi, was identified by Velikovsky as Ahab son of Omri, king of Samaria and Jezreel. Within our framework of a biblically aligned stratigraphy, it is certain that this king reigned during the divided monarchy.
But which king of North Israel he was, assuming that he was indeed a king of North Israel, is less certain. Peter James and Martin Sieff have presented impressive arguments for identifying him as Ahab’s son Jehoram, and the late Bronson Feldman considered him to have been the usurper Jehu. For now, we will concern ourselves with the reading of this king’s name. … [Rib-Addi] the king of Sumur and Gubla, we see that his name, in a 9th century context, is best read Rib-Addu-DI, or Rib-Adduram. With “Addu” understood as a general term denoting
the local chief deity, it is perfectly legitimate to read this name as Rib-Yauram, or
Jehoram the Elder.
As described in the Jerusalem Chronology of the Israelite Monarchies (JCIM), Jehoshaphat appointed his son Jehoram coregent while he was in the North, helping Ahab to fight against Aram. But Ahab’s son Jehoram became king of North Israel before Jehoshaphat died.
In order to avoid the confusion that was bound to arise with two Jehorams ruling in the same general area, Ahab’s son signed himself as Jehoram the Elder, or Jehoram the Greater. The particle “rib” can be understood in either way, and there is actually no reason to assume that this king was older than his southern brotherin-law. Why was this necessary? After all, the Bible distinguishes these two kings by patronymic: Jehoram son of Ahab and Jehoram son of Jehoshaphat.
The answer lies in the political situation at the time. … One of the signs of a sovereign state is that it chooses its own rulers. A state which is subject to another
has its rulers chosen for it. As a matter of practice in the ancient world, this was usually limited to confirming the heir of the previous ruler. If there was a question of loyalties, the imperial power might take more active steps, such as choosing between two rival heirs or even putting an end to a ruling dynasty. This was the exception rather than the rule. But even when succession was automatically confirmed, the legality of the situation, at least from the standpoint of the imperial power, was that vassals ruled, not as their fathers’ heirs, but by appointment.
We find an illustration of this in a letter sent from the king of Jerusalem to Pharaoh (EA 286). The king of Jerusalem protests his loyalty to Egypt, proclaiming: Behold, neither my mother nor my father has put me in this place. The mighty hand of the king had led me into the house of my father. Despite the clear indication of dynastic succession (“the house of my father”), the king of Jerusalem is here proclaiming his loyalty in the clearest way possible, by acknowledging that he rules only at the whim of Pharaoh. For Jehoram son of Omri to have referred to himself as “Yauram mar Humri” would have implied that he held his throne by virtue of his birth, and would have constituted an act of rebellion against Egypt.

[End of quote]

Now, whilst Liel had optimisitically concluded, on a linguistic basis, that “the equation of Rib-Addi and Jehoram son of Ahab [was] a foregone conclusion” (thesis, p. 69):
If the Amarna letters were written in the 9th century BCE, we would expect to find mostly semitic names being used. And if there are two equally valid readings for a particular name, the one which is identifiable as semitic would be preferred. Of course, if the Amarna period was in the 13th century (as in the conventional chronology) or the 11th (as in the Rohl/Newgrosh New Chronology), we would have less reason to prefer such a reading, but within our framework, the reading Addu-DI is to be preferred. The radical DI has the meaning “compassionate”, which in Akkadian is ram. Addu-DI may therefore be read Addu-Ram or Adduram, which is immediately recognizable as the biblical Adoram or Hadoram (cuneiform has no way of representing the consonant “h”, which is why the DN which appears as Hadad in the Bible is Adad in cuneiform, and which is why both the forms Adoram and Hadoram are attested).
One individual bearing this name is Hadoram son of To’i, prince of Hamath (I Chronicles 18:10), who is also called Joram (II Samuel 8:10).
At this point, we might simply point out that “Addi” is more likely to be read “Adduram,” and that we have an attested case of Hadoram and Joram being used for the same individual, which seems to make the equation of Rib-Addi and Jehoram son of Ahab a foregone conclusion [,]
there appear to be some considerable geographical difficulties against such a conclusion, as Liel herself will go on to concede (as quoted in thesis pp. 84-85):
Certain questions remain regarding the identification of the Rib-Yauram of the Amarna letters and the biblical Jehoram son of Omri. The main one is geographical; i.e., can Sumur and Gubla be identified with Samaria and Jezreel? This question will be dealt with in a forthcoming paper to be entitled “The Hebrew-Phoenician-Aramean Kingdom of North Israel.”

[End of quote]

Obviously this looms as a major difficulty, the resolution of which would be most necessary before one can claim Sieff’s (Liel’s) equation to be “a foregone conclusion”.
Conclusion
 
Now, to answer the title question of this article, whether or not Rib-Addi of EA can be identified as a biblical character (necessarily of the Divided Kingdom era), I think that it is certain at least that King Ahab of Israel can no longer possibly be considered as an appropriate candidate.


For more on this, see:

Is El Amarna’s Lab’ayu Biblically Identifiable?

https://www.academia.edu/17534703/Is_El_Amarna_s_Lab_ayu_Biblically

" Jonah is initially resistant to God's will, but eventually learns that he must obey the Lord".



Pope Francis: God wants his ministers to be merciful

2015-10-06 Vatican Radio

(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis has warned against having a hard heart that is closed to God’s mercy.
Speaking on Tuesday morning during Mass at the Casa Santa Marta before joining the Synod Fathers gathered in the Vatican Synod Hall, the Pope urged the faithful not to put one’s own convictions or a list of commandments before the Lord's mercy.



Listen to the report by Linda Bordoni: 

Drawing inspiration from the first reading of the Book of Jonah, the Pope pointed out that Jonah is initially resistant to God's will, but eventually learns that he must obey the Lord.
Remarking on the fact that the city of Nineveh converts thanks to Jonah’s preaching, Pope Francis said “it really was a miracle, because in this case he abandons his stubbornness, his rigidity,  to obey the will of God, and he did what the Lord commanded him."
And afterwards, the Pope said, after the conversion of Nineveh, Jonah “who was not a man who was docile to the Spirit of God, was angry". The Pope said he even rebuked the Lord.
So, Pope Francis observed, the story of Jonah and Nineveh unfolds in three chapters:  the first "is Jonah’s resistance to the mission the Lord entrusts him with"; the second "is his obedience” and the ensuing miracle; in the third chapter, "there is resistance to God’s mercy".
The Pope went on to say that Jesus too was misunderstood because of his mercy.
  He recalled that Jesus lived with the Doctors of the Law who did not understand why he did not let the adulteress be stoned, they did not understand why he dined with publicans and sinners, “they did not understand. They did not understand mercy”.
Pope Francis said that the Psalm that we prayed today tells us to "wait for the Lord because with the Lord there is mercy, and redemption."
"Where the Lord is - Francis concluded - there is mercy”. And, he added, as Ambrose said: “Where his ministers are there is rigidity. The rigidity that defies mission, which challenges mercy ":
"As we approach the Year of Mercy, let us pray the Lord to help us understand his heart, to understand what 'mercy' means, what it means when He says: 'I want mercy, not sacrifice!'” he said.

....

Taken from: http://www.news.va/en/news/pope-francis-god-wants-his-ministers-to-be-mercifu

House of Solomon

by

 Damien F. Mackey

 

 

 

Reference is made in El Amarna [EA] letters 74 and 290 to a place 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 by Wikipedia (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 point of view, this is all quite incorrect.

Dr. Immanuel Velikovsky was able to show in his Ages in Chaos, I (1952), that the EA era actually belonged to, not to the C14th BC, but the C9th BC era of Israel’s Divided Kingdom. And it is from such a revised perspective that Velikovsky was able to make this 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.⁽³⁾ 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 . . .”⁽⁴⁾ 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.”⁽⁵⁾

[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 P. James, that Abdi-Hiba was actually King Jehoshaphat’s evil son, Jehoram - a modification that I fully supported in:

 

King Abdi-Hiba of Jerusalem Locked in as a

‘Pillar’ of Revised History

 

https://www.academia.edu/7772239/King_Abdi-Hiba_of_Jerusalem_Locked_in_as_a_Pillar_of_Revised_History

 

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.⁽⁶⁾ 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”,⁽⁷⁾ 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!

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, soon insisted 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).

This, I think, is a reasonable possibility.

 

The apparent reference back 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 noted in:

 

Israel Finkelstein has not archaeologically “destroyed Solomon”,

as he thinks. He has completely missed Solomon.

 

https://www.academia.edu/3689852/Israel_Finkelstein_has_not_archaeologically_destroyed_Solomon_as_he_thinks._He_has_completely_missed_Solomon

 

 …. 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 causes 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).

 

 

Easter 2015

He is Risen!