St. Paul’s “Jannes and Jambres” were a pair of Reubenite brothers

by

 

Damien F. Mackey

 

 

 

“Just as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so also these teachers oppose the truth.

They are men of depraved minds, who, as far as the faith is concerned, are rejected”.

 

2 Timothy 3:8

 

 

 

Jannes and Jambres not Egyptians

 

The tendency, a natural one, is to suspect that the two characters to whom St. Paul refers in

2 Timothy 3:8, “Jannes and Mambres [Jambres]”, were Egyptians (e.g., magicians) who had ‘resisted Moses to his face’ when Moses was still back in the land of Egypt.

Here it will be suggested, instead, that the pair were Israelite troublemakers for Moses,

whose bitter opposition to the great man would lead to their terrible demise. 

 

 

In the course of my attempts over the years to set Moses in an historical Egyptian setting I have generally tried also to take into account “Jannes and Mambres” as Moses’ contemporaries.

But this has hardly been an easy task – especially when one does not know who were this pair, Jannes and Mambres, or what was their nationality, or their status.

 

Were they, as according to long-standing tradition, Egyptian magicians, a pair of brothers?

Or were they themselves actual rulers of Egypt?

 

The latter was the conclusion to which I had come, that Jannes and Mambres must have been separate Egyptian kings, both of whom had been inimical to Moses.

 

Jannes

 

In my revised context, Unas (Manetho’s Onnus, Jaumos, Onos), who fitted into my scheme as an alter ego of Moses’ foster/father-in-law, Chenephres (= Chephren, Neferkare/Pepi, Sesostris), and who appropriately was a magician king: “It was Unas who created the practice of listing some magic spells on the walls of the tomb” (https://www.ask-aladdin.com/egypt-pharaohs/unas/), had a name that accords very well linguistically with Jannes.

This has often been pointed out.

Jannes, then, would be that king who was, according to Artapanus, highly jealous of Moses, a military genius, who kept upstaging the king in his exploits. “Jealousy of Moses' excellent qualities induced Chenephres to send him with unskilled troops on a military expedition to Ethiopia, where he won great victories”. https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Moses

 

Theirs was very much a Saul-David kind of relationship (I Samuel 18:7): “Saul has his thousands, David his tens of thousand”, which, of course, enfuriated King Saul (vv. 8-9): “Saul was very angry; this refrain displeased him greatly. ‘They have credited David with tens of thousands’, he thought, ‘but me with only thousands. What more can he get but the kingdom?’ And from that time on Saul kept a close eye on David”.

 

Thus it could be said, as of Jannes (2 Timothy 3:8): “Just as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so these men also oppose the truth, men corrupted in mind and disqualified regarding the faith”, that Chenephres “opposed Moses”. After Moses had killed an Egyptian who was beating a Hebrew (Exodus 2:11-12), we read that (v. 15): “When Pharaoh heard of this, he tried to kill Moses, but Moses fled from Pharaoh and went to live in Midian …”.  

There was no love lost between these two men, and so I thought that the first of St. Paul’s pair, “Jannes”, could be this particular ruler of Egypt, with “Mambres” to be, as I expected, a late one.

 

Mambres

 

This name, it seemed to me, had something more of an Egyptian ring to it, say e.g., Ma-ib-re.

By now I was locked in to believing that Mambres, too, must have been a ruler of Egypt, and the most likely candidate for him - a standout, I thought - was the “stiff-necked” king who refused to let the people of Israel go away from Egypt. He “opposed” (Gk. antestēsan) Moses and Aaron even in the face of the Ten Plagues.

That scenario meant that I now must identify an Egyptian ruler of the Plagues and Exodus who had one of his names resembling Mambres (or Jambres). That, I thought, had to be Maibre Sheshi of the Fourteenth Dynasty.

 

Whether or not, the significant ruler Maibre Sheshi was the king ruling Egypt at the time of the Plagues and Exodus I would now regard as being quite irrelevant to Paul’s Jannes and Mambres.

These I now consider to be Israelite (Hebrew) personages, who had opposed Moses even in Egypt, and who would continue to oppose him most bitterly during the Exodus.

 

 

Jannes and Mambres identified

 

 

“Then Moses summoned Dathan and Abiram, the sons of Eliab. But they said, ‘We will not come! Isn’t it enough that you have brought us up out of a land flowing with milk and honey

to kill us in the wilderness? And now you also want to lord it over us! Moreover, you haven’t brought us into a land flowing with milk and honey or given us an inheritance of fields and vineyards. Do you want to treat these men like slaves No, we will not come!’”

 

Numbers 16:12-14

 

 

 

Dathan and Abiram, two Reubenite brothers, were the pair, “Jannes and Jambres” of whom Paul wrote so disparagingly in 2 Timothy 3:8.

 

Nahum Sarna well describes the troublesome pair in his article, “Dathan and Abiram”, for: https://www.encyclopedia.com/religion/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/dathan-and-abiram

 

 

DATHAN AND ABIRAM (Heb. דָּתָן, cf. Akk. datnu, "strong"; and Heb. אֲבִירָם, "my [or 'the'] father is exalted"), sons of Eliab of the tribe of Reuben, leaders of a revolt against the leadership of Moses (Num. 16; 26:9–11). According to these sources, they joined the rebellion of *Korah during the desert wanderings. Defying Moses' summons, they accused him of having brought the Israelites out of the fertile land of Egypt in order to let them die in the wilderness (16:12–14). Moses then went to the tents of Dathan and Abiram and persuaded the rest of the community to dissociate themselves from them. Thereafter, the earth opened and swallowed the rebels, their families, and property (16:25–33). Modern scholars generally regard this narrative as resulting from an editorial interweaving of originally distinct accounts of two separate rebellions against the authority of Moses. It is noted that verses 12–15 and 25ff. form a continuous, self-contained literary unit and that the former contains no mention of Korah, who is likewise omitted from the references in Deuteronomy 11:6 and Psalms 106:17. The event described served as a warning to Israel and as an example of divine justice (ibid.). Ben Sira (45:18), too, mentions it. However, no further details are given about the two rebels, and the narrative is clearly fragmentary. It is not unlikely that the rebellion was connected with the series of events that led to the tribe of Reuben's loss of its earlier position of preeminence. ….

 

Apparently Dathan and Abiram had ‘form’, going back to their days in Egypt, being traditionally “… identified with the two quarreling Israelites (Ex. R. 1:30) …”:  

 

In the Aggadah

Dathan and Abiram are regarded as the prototype of inveterate fomenters of trouble. Their names are interpreted allegorically, Dathan denoting his violation of God's law, and Abiram his refusal to repent (Sanh. 109b). They were wholly wicked "from beginning to end" (Meg. 11a). They are identified with the two quarreling Israelites (Ex. R. 1:30) and it was they who caused Moses' flight from Egypt by denouncing him to Pharaoh for killing the Egyptian taskmaster, and revealing that he was not the son of Pharaoh's daughter (Yal., Ex. 167). They incited the people to return to Egypt (Ex. R. 1:29) both at the Red Sea and when the spies returned from Canaan (Mid. Ps. 106:5). They transgressed the commandment concerning the manna by keeping it overnight (Ex. R. 1:30). Dathan and Abiram became ringleaders of the rebellion under the influence of Korah, as a result of the camp of their tribe being next to that of Korah, and on this the rabbis base the statement "Woe to the wicked, woe to his neighbor" (Num. R. 18:5). When Moses humbly went to them in person in order to dissuade them from their evil designs, they were impertinent and insulting to him (mk 16a). In their statement to Moses, "we will not come up," they unconsciously prophesied their end, as they did not go up, but down to hell (Num. R. 18:10). ….

 

If they were, in fact, “the two quarreling Israelites” (Exodus 2:13-14): “The next day [Moses] went out and saw two Hebrews fighting. He asked the one in the wrong, ‘Why are you hitting your fellow Hebrew?’ The man said, ‘Who made you ruler and judge over us? Are you thinking of killing me as you killed the Egyptian?’,” then the retort ‘Who made you ruler and judge over us?’ perfectly reflects what Dathan and Abarim would say to Moses later in the desert (Numbers 16:13) ‘And now you also want to lord it over us!’

 

Clearly, Dathan and Abiram had an inflated sense of their own self-importance.

Moses had officially been appointed, by the king of Egypt, as “ruler and judge over” these people.

For Moses was at the time, according to my revision, ‘Chief Judge’ and ‘Vizier’ of Egypt:

 

Historical Moses may be Weni and Mentuhotep

 

https://www.academia.edu/36803542/Historical_Moses_may_be_Weni_and_Mentuhotep

 

 

Can the names, Dathan and Abiram, be merged with Jannes and Jambres?

I believe that they basically can.

We read above that, in the Aggadah, the names Dathan and Abiram are interpreted allegorically.

The other pair of names, Jannes and Jambres, can be rendered as “John and Ambrose”, according to R. Gedaliah (Shalsheleth Hakabala, fol. 7. 1):

https://www.biblestudytools.com/commentaries/gills-exposition-of-the-bible/2-timothy-3-8.html

 

“It is commonly said by the Jews ^F15, that these were the two sons of Balaam, and they are said to be the chief of the magicians of Egypt ^F16; the latter of these is called in the Vulgate Latin version Mambres; and in some Jewish writers his name is Mamre ^F17 by whom also the former is called Jochane or John; and indeed Joannes, Jannes, and John, are the same name; and R. Gedaliah ^F18 says, that their names in other languages are John and Ambrose, which is not unlikely”.

 

In this case, Dathan would better be rendered as Jathan, a contraction of Jonathan, hence Ἰωάννης (Iōannēs) in Greek. We can easily see the connection here with Jannes (Iōannēs).

Ambrose, obviously not a Hebrew name: “The later Jews distorted the names into John and Ambrose” (https://biblehub.com/commentaries/2_timothy/3-8.htm), is a very good fit for Jambres. But less so a fit for Abiram.

 

Since it occurred to me only yesterday (18^th December, 2019) that Jannes and Jambres may be identifiable with Dathan and Abiram, I have not yet had time to read if, and where, others may have expressed this same idea. From the following, which rejects any such connection, it would appear that some have proposed that the two pairs might equate (“as some have thought”):

https://biblehub.com/commentaries/2_timothy/3-8.htm

 

…. These were not Jews, who rose up and opposed Moses, as Dathan and Abiram did, as some have thought; but Egyptian magicians, the chief of those that Pharaoh sent for, when Moses and Aaron came before him, and wrought miracles; and who did in like manner by their enchantments, Exodus 7:11 upon which place the Targum of Jonathan has these words:

 

"and Pharaoh called the wise men and the magicians; and Janis and Jambres, the magicians of the Egyptians, did so by the enchantments of their divinations.''

 

 

Sodom and the destructive “chasm” of era of Boethos

 by

 

Damien F. Mackey

 

 

Manetho states that during the 38 years reign of Boethos (or Bochos)

a “chasm” opened at Bubastis and many people died.

 

 

This present article has been lifted from Volume Seven (“Sodom to Saqqara”) of my book, “From Genesis to Hernán Cortés”.

 

 

The combined lives of (Abram) Abraham and Isaac may have enabled us to put together a long-reigning first ruler of Egypt and southern (Philistine) Canaan, Menes Hor-Aha (‘Min’), or, in Hebrew terms, “Abimelech”, whose name, I thought, had some resonance with the Egyptian name Raneb of the Second Dynasty.  

And from the name Raneb I conjectured a possible connection with the celebrated, but obscure, Old Kingdom ruler, Nebka, who, in turn, could be the Nebkaure (Nebkare), said by Pliny to have been the ruler at the time of Abraham.

 

This was pointed out by David Rohl, who had proceeded from there to identify that Nebkaure with Khety IV of the Tenth Dynasty.

 

These combinations, which I would accept as a working hypothesis, would (if correct) enable for a synthesising of the Old Kingdom (First and Second dynasties) with the ‘Middle’ Kingdom (Tenth Dynasty), in accordance with Dr. Donovan Courville’s suggestion that the Old and Middle were by no means vastly separated in time the one from the other, but were to some degree concurrent.

 

One also reads at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weneg_(pharaoh) that a scholar has identified Raneb, in turn, with Weneg, and, further, that N. Grimal and others think that Weneg corresponds to Hor-Sekhemib-Perenmaat.

Such a series of identifications would minimise the number of rulers in the Second Dynasty.

 

The first listed ruler of the Second Dynasty is given as Hetepsekhemwy, whom Manetho calls “Boethos”. His position at the beginning of the dynasty might necessitate an identification of him with the very first ruler of Egypt, the one known to Abraham and Isaac.

While that may be an extremely tenuous connection, I notice that David O’Connor (Leaving No Stones Unturned: Essays on the Ancient Near East and Egypt ….), has embraced an identification of Hetepsekhemwy with Raneb (p. 170): “The earlier rulers of Dynasty II (perhaps as many as six individuals) were probably all buried at Saqqara, where so far only two of the actual tombs have been located, one for king Hotepsekhemwy or Raneb, the other for king Ninetjer”.

The Second Dynasty was unlikely composed of “as many as six individuals”, far fewer.

And I likewise would suggest that the conventional nine or so rulers of the First Dynasty might be similarly in need of a reduction.

Hetepsekhemwy (or Hotepsekhemwy) is so poorly known for a ruler of anything from 38 (Manetho) to 95 (Turin canon) years that he needs one, or more, alter egos.

That is apparent from the following: https://www.crystalinks.com/dynasty2.html

 

Little is known about Hotepsekhemwy's reign. Contemporary sources show that he may have gained the throne after a period of political strife, including ephemeral rulers such as Horus "Bird" and Sneferka (the latter is also thought to be an alternate name used by king Qaa for a short time). As evidence of this, Egyptologists Wolfgang Helck, Dietrich Wildung and George Reisner point to the tomb of king Qaa, which was plundered at the end of 1st dynasty and was restored during the reign of Hotepsekhemwy. The plundering of the cemetery and the unusually conciliatory meaning of the name Hotepsekhemwy may be clues of a dynastic struggle. Additionally, Helck assumes that the kings Sneferka and Horus "Bird" were omitted from later king lists because their struggles for the Egyptian throne were factors in the collapse of the first dynasty.

Seal impressions provide evidence of a new royal residence called "Horus the shining star" that was constructed by Hotepsekhemwy. He also built a temple near Buto for the little-known deity Netjer-Achty and founded the "Chapel of the White Crown". The white crown is a symbol of Upper Egypt. This is thought to be another clue to the origin of Hotepsekhemwy's dynasty, indicating a likely source of political power. Egyptologists such as Nabil Swelim point out that there is no inscription from Hotepsekhemwy's reign mentioning a Sed festival, indicating the ruler cannot have ruled longer than 30 years (the Sed festival was celebrated as the anniversary marking a reign of 30 years).

The ancient Greek Manetho called Hotepsekhemwy Boethos (apparently altered from the name Bedjau) and reported that during this ruler's reign "a chasm opened near Bubastis and many perished". Although Manetho wrote in the 3rd century BC - over two millennia after the king's actual reign - some Egyptologists think it possible that this anecdote may have been based on fact, since the region near Bubastis is known to be seismically active.

The location of Hotepsekhemwy's tomb is unknown. Egyptologists such as Flinders Petrie, Alessandre Barsanti and Toby Wilkinson believe it could be the giant underground Gallery Tomb B beneath the funeral passage of the Unas-necropolis at Sakkara. Many seal impressions of king Hotepsekhemwy have been found in these galleries.

Egyptologists such as Wolfgang Helck and Peter Munro are not convinced and think that Gallery Tomb B is instead the burial site of king Raneb, as several seal impressions of this ruler were also found there. ….

 

Most important for our study here, about great geophysical rifts appearing in the region, is that piece of evidence from Manetho about the “chasm” during the reign of “Boethos”.

If, as I am tentatively suggesting, “Boethos” had been a contemporary of Abraham and Isaac, then one might expect that the “chasm” that killed many people had to do with the destruction witnessed by Abram (Genesis 19:24-28):

 

Then the Lord rained down burning sulfur on Sodom and Gomorrah—from the Lord out of the heavens. Thus he overthrew those cities and the entire plain, destroying all those living in the cities—and also the vegetation in the land. But Lot’s wife looked back, and she became a pillar of salt.

Early the next morning Abraham got up and returned to the place where he had stood before the Lord. He looked down toward Sodom and Gomorrah, toward all the land of the plain, and he saw dense smoke rising from the land, like smoke from a furnace.  

 

That “chasm” may be a something in the life of the monarch, “Boethos”, that could relate to the catastrophism that caused the extinction of Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboyim, with “Bela (that is Zoar)” saved for the sake of Lot and his daughters (Genesis 19:20-23).  https://www.crystalinks.com/dynasty2.html

“The ancient Greek Manetho called Hotepsekhemwy Boethos (apparently altered from the name Bedjau) and reported that during this ruler's reign "a chasm opened near Bubastis and many perished". Although Manetho wrote in the 3rd century BC - over two millennia after the king's actual reign - some Egyptologists think it possible that this anecdote may have been based on fact, since the region near Bubastis is known to be seismically active”.

 

Manetho, living very long after the “chasmic” event, may have done what Herodotus made bold to do regarding the destruction of Sennacherib’s Assyrian army, which Herodotus transferred geographically from Palestine to the Egyptian Delta, to Pelusium.

 

For Manetho will locate the “chasm” of “Boethos” in Bubastis.

 

Commenting on this, Swiss archaeologist, Henri Édouard Naville wrote in an article, “Bubastis” (1891): “We learn from Manetho that under the King Boethos, the first of the second dynasty, a chasm opened itself at Bubastis, which caused the loss of a great many lives. Up to the present day, we have not found in any part of Egypt monuments as old as the second dynasty”.

 

Abimelech of Genesis may be the legendary Nebka of Egypt

 

 

by

 

Damien F. Mackey

 

 

 

 

 

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.

 

 

 

The king of Egypt at the time of Abram (Abraham) I have identified, e.g. in my article:

 

From Genesis to Hernan Cortes. Volume Four: Era of Abraham

 

https://www.academia.edu/41229801/From_Genesis_to_Hernan_Cortes._Volume_Four_Era_of_Abraham

 

as the first ruler of the First Dynasty, the very long-reigning Menes Hor-Aha (‘Min’).

And I have been able - following the structure of the Book of Genesis (toledôt and chiasmus) - to link that ruler with Abimelech known to Abram (Genesis 20:2) and to Isaac (26:1).

 

 

Whilst Abimelech (אֲבִימֶ֙לֶךְ֙) is a Hebrew name, meaning “My Father is King”, I noted that it had a structure and meaning rather similar to that of the supposedly Second Dynasty king, Raneb, or Nebra:

 

that is, “Father Ra is King”.

 

Before I had come to the conclusion that Abram’s ruler of Egypt belonged to the First Dynasty, I had thought - the same as David Rohl, although quite independently of him - that he must be the Tenth Dynasty’s Khety.

Rohl numbers him as Khety IV Nebkaure, whereas I had numbered him as Khety III (though N. Grimal has a Khety II Nebkaure, A History of Egypt, pp. 144, 148).

If the so-called Tenth Dynasty were really to be located this early in time, I had thought, then this would have had major ramifications for any attempted reconstruction of Egyptian history. Having Abram’s Egyptian ruler situated in the Tenth Dynasty fitted 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.  

 

Here, for what it is worth, is what I have written about pharaoh Khety III:

  

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’.

 

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-ha) as living at the same time as Khety II.

Another tentative suggestion would be that the legendary Nebka, ruler of Egypt, whom Grimal and the likes find difficult to locate precisely in early Egyptian history, was Nebkaure, Nebkare, the traditional ruler of Egypt at the time of Abraham – and Khety Nebkaure according to David Rohl.

This name, in turn, Nebka, may then allow for a link also with Raneb, whose name we found is like Abimelech.

There may be more yet to this king, since “Egyptologist Jochem Kahl argues that Weneg was the same person as king Raneb …”: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weneg_(pharaoh)

 

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.

 

We may need to start investigating First, Second and Tenth Dynasty inter-connections.

 

 

Horrible Histories: Unaccountable Akkadians

 

 

by

 

Damien F. Mackey

 

 

““Uncertainty in identifying exclusively Akkadian pottery has made it impossible to reconstruct Akkadian settlement patterns with any confidence” (Nissen 1993: 100)”.

 

Dr. John Osgood

 

Dr. Donovan Courville would come to the conclusion, in his praiseworthy effort to bring Egypt and Mesopotamia into line historically and archaeologically with the biblical data (The Exodus Problem and its Ramifications, 1971), that the distinctive Jemdet Nasr (near Kish) period was archaeological evidence for the Dispersion after Babel.

 

Vern Crisler tells of it: https://vernerable.files.wordpress.com/2008/10/tower-of-babel1.pdf

 

Courville was quite confident that the Dispersion from Babel took place in the archaeological period known as “Jemdet Nasr.” …. The strata of Jemdet Nasr in Mesopotamia correlate to Early Bronze 1 strata in the Holy Land. It is believed that this period shows that an “intensive migration” took place from Mesopotamia into Syria, Palestine, Egypt, Asia Minor and into the Aegean islands.

 

Reference is made to W. F. Albright who had spoken of this period as a “transitional period” corresponding to Megiddo 19 and the lowest level of Byblos. …. It is further noted that this was a “narrow period” in Mesopotamian history, and that Jemdet Nasr had a “brief existence” and was “short.” …. The Jemdet Nasr period represents the beginnings of dynastic history, and thus represents a trend toward nationalism.

[End of quotes]

 

Following Dr. Osgood, I shall be suggesting a different context for the Jemdet Nasr phase, somewhat later than Babel.

 

My own view is that the Akkadian dynasty is represented by the sophisticated Halaf culture, currently dated to approximately (a massive) four millennia before King Sargon of Akkad (c. 2334 -2284 BC, conventional dating).

This Sargon I, ‘the Great’, may even be Nimrod himself. See e.g. my article:

 

Nimrod a “mighty man”

 

https://www.academia.edu/39638349/Nimrod_a_mighty_man_

 

As we are now going to find, the conventional picture regarding the archaeology for the famous Akkadian and Ur III dynasties is hopelessly inadequate. Here is what I have written on this:

 

“Uncertainty in identifying exclusively Akkadian pottery has made it impossible to reconstruct Akkadian settlement patterns with any confidence” (Nissen 1993: 100).

Most interesting, now, that Anne Habermehl’s geographical re-location of the Babel incident:

… finds a most significant and sophisticated ancient culture to accompany it: namely, Halaf.

…. The long Akkadian empire phase of history … so admired by subsequent rulers and generations, is remarkably lacking in archaeological data. I noted this [before] ….

 

“The Akkadian kings were extensive builders, so why, then, so few traces of their work?

 

Not to mention, where is their capital city of Akkad?

 

The Ur III founder, Ur-Nammu, built a wall at Ur. Not a trace remains”.

 

…. here I want to highlight the enormity of the problem.

Archaeologists have actually failed to identify a specific pottery for the Akkadian era!

This is, of course, quite understandable given that they (indeed, we) have been expecting to discover the heart of the Akkadian kingdom in Sumer, or Lower Mesopotamia.

We read of this incredible situation of a missing culture in the following account by Dr. R. Matthews, from his book, The Archaeology of Mesopotamia: Theories and Approaches (https://books.google.com.au/books?id=9ZrjLyrPipsC&pg=PA152&lpg=PA152&dq=uncer):

 

The problems of fitting material cultural assemblages, especially pottery, into historical sequences are epitomised in the ongoing debate over what, if anything, characterises Akkadian material culture in Lower Mesopotamia (Gibson and McMahon 1995; Nissen 1993; J. G. Westenholz 1998).

Uncertainty in identifying exclusively Akkadian pottery has made it impossible to reconstruct Akkadian settlement patterns with any confidence (Nissen 1993: 100). The bleakest view has been put thus: ‘If we didn’t know from the texts that the Akkad empire really existed, we would not be able to postulate it from the changes in settlement patterns, nor … from the evolution of material culture’ (Liverani 1993: 7-8). The inference is either that we are failing to isolate and identify the specifics of Akkadian material culture, or that a political entity apparently so large and sophisticated as the Akkadian empire can rise and pass without making a notable impact on settlement patterns or any aspect of material culture”.

 

Obviously, that “a political entity apparently so large and sophisticated as the Akkadian empire can rise and pass without making a notable impact on … any aspect of material culture” is quite absurd. The truth of the matter is that a whole imperial culture has been almost totally lost because - just as in the case of so much Egyptian culture, and in its relation to the Bible - historians and archaeologists are forever looking in the wrong geographical place at the wrong chronological time.

 

It is my view that, regarding the Akkadian empire (and following Habermehl), one needs to look substantially towards Syria and the Mosul region, rather than to “Lower Mesopotamia”. And that one needs to fuse the Halaf culture with the Akkadian one. The most important contribution by Anne Habermehl has opened up a completely new vista for the central Akkadian empire, and for the biblical events associated with it. The potentate Nimrod, one might now expect, had begun his empire building, not in Sumer, but in the Sinjar region, and had then moved on to northern Assyria. Thus Genesis 10:10-11: “The beginning of [Nimrod’s] kingdom was Babel and Erech and Accad and Calneh, in the land of Shinar. From that land he went forth into Assyria, where he built Nineveh, Rehoboth-Ir, Calah and Resen, which is between Nineveh and Calah—which is the great city”.

 

And these are precisely the regions where we find that the spectacular Halaf culture arose and chiefly developed: NE Syria and the Mosul region of Assyria.

 

Understandably once again, in a conventional context, with the Halaf cultural phase dated to c. 6100-5100 BC, there can be no question of meeting these dates with the Akkadian empire of the late C3rd millennium BC. That is where Dr. Osgood’s “A Better Model for the Stone Age” (http://creation.com/a-better-model-for-the-stone-age) becomes so vital, with its revising of Halaf down to the Late Chalcolithic period in Palestine, to the time of Abram (Abraham):

 

…. In 1982, under the title 'A Four-Stage Sequence for the Levantine Neolithic', Andrew M.T. Moore presented evidence to show that the fourth stage of the Syrian Neolithic was in fact usurped by the Halaf Chalcolithic culture of Northern Mesopotamia, and that this particular Chalcolithic culture was contemporary with the Neolithic IV of Palestine and Lebanon.^5:25 ....

 

….

 

This was very significant, especially as the phase of Halaf culture so embodied was a late phase of the Halaf Chalcolithic culture of Mesopotamia, implying some degree of contemporaneity of the earlier part of Chalcolithic Mesopotamia with the early part of the Neolithic of Palestine, Lebanon and Syria ….

This finding was not a theory but a fact, slowly and very cautiously realized, but devastating in its effect upon the presently held developmental history of the ancient world. This being the case, and bearing in mind the impossibility of absolute dating by any scientific means despite the claims to the contrary, the door is opened very wide for the possible acceptance of the complete contemporaneity of the whole of the Chalcolithic of Mesopotamia with the whole of the Neolithic and Chalcolithic of Palestine. (The last period of the Chalcolithic of Palestine is seen to be contemporary with the last Chalcolithic period of Mesopotamia.)

 

Dr. Osgood himself, however, regards the Halaf people as the biblical “Aramites” [Aramaeans]. (“A Better Model for the Stone Age Part Two”: http://creation.com/a-better-model-for-the-stone-age-part-2).

 

Since the Aramaeans, though, tended to be a wandering nomadic people (Deuteronomy 26:5), I would not expect their existence to be reflected in a culture as sophisticated as Halaf. Though they themselves may have absorbed some of it. My preference, therefore, is for Halaf to represent the Akkadians, especially as Halaf was the dominant culture when Osgood’s Jemdat Nasr pertaining to the Elamite Chedorlaomer, arose.

 

This is how Dr. Osgood sees the spread of the Halaf culture:

 

Now if we date Babel to approximately 2,200 B.C. (as reasoned by implication from Noah's Flood ³) and if Abraham came from Mesopotamia (the region of Aram) approximately 1875 B.C., then we would expect that there is archaeological evidence that a people who can fit the description generally of the Aramites should be found well established in this area .... What in fact do we find? Taking the former supposition of the Jemdat Nasr culture being identified with the biblical story of Genesis 14 and the Elamite Chedarloamer,⁴ we would expect to find some evidence in Aram or northern Mesopotamia of Jemdat Nasr influence, but this would only be the latest of cultural influences in this region superseding and dominant on other cultures.

 

The dominant culture that had been in this area prior to the Jemdat Nasr period was a culture that is known to the archaeologist as the Halaf culture, named after Tell Halaf where it was first identified. One of the best summaries of our present knowledge of the Halafian culture is found in the publication, 'The Hilly Flanks'⁵. It seems clear from the present state of knowledge that the Halaf culture was a fairly extensive culture, but it was mostly dominant in the area that we recognise as Aram Naharaim.

 

It is found in the following regions. First, its main base in earliest distribution seems to have been the Mosul region. From there it later spread to the Sinjar region to the west, further westward in the Khabur head-waters, further west again to the Balikh River system, and then into the middle Euphrates valley. It also spread a little north of these areas. It influenced areas west of the Middle Euphrates valley and a few sites east of the Tigris River, but as a general statement, in its fully spread condition, the Halaf culture dominated Aram Naharaim ….

 

The site of Arpachiyah just west of Nineveh across the Tigris River appears to have been the longest occupied site and perhaps the original settlement of the Halaf people. This and Tepe Gawra were important early Halaf towns.

 

The settlement of the Halaf people at these cities continued for some considerable time, finally to be replaced by the Al Ubaid people from southern Mesopotamia. When Mallowan excavated the site of Tell Arpachiyah, he found that the top five levels belonged to the Al Ubaid period. The fifth level down had some admixture of Halaf material within it. He says:

 

‘The more spacious rooms of T.T.5 indicate that it is the work of Tell Halaf builders; that the two stocks did not live together in harmony is shown by the complete change of material in T.T.l-4, where all traces of the older elements had vanished. Nor did any of the burials suggest an overlap between graves of the A 'Ubaid and Tell Halaf period; on the contrary, there was evidence that in the Al 'Ubaid cemetery grave- diggers of the Al 'Ubaid period had deliberately destroyed Tell Halaf house remains.’⁶

 

He further comments the following:

 

‘It is more than probable that the Tell Halaf peoples abandoned the site on the arrival of the newcomers from Babylonia; and with the disappearance of the old element prosperity the site rapidly declined; for, although the newcomers were apparently strong enough to eject the older inhabitants, yet they appear to have been a poor community, already degenerate; their houses were poorly built and meanly planned, their streets no longer cobbled as in the Tell Halaf period and the general appearance of their settlement dirty and poverty stricken in comparison with the cleaner buildings of the healthier northern peoples who were their predecessors.’⁷

 

He further says:

 

‘The invaders had evidently made a wholesale destruction of all standing buildings converted some of them into a cemetery.’⁸

 

It is clear from the discussion of Patty Jo Watson⁹ that the later periods of the Halaf people were found in the other regions, particularly in a westward direction across the whole area of Aram Naharaim, namely the Sinjar region, the Khabur head-waters, the Balikh River system and the middle Euphrates”.

 

[End of Osgood’s article]

 

Dr. Osgood had estimated the Halaf culture as having spread from east (Assyria) to the west: “First, its main base in earliest distribution seems to have been the Mosul region. From there it later spread to the Sinjar region to the west, further westward in the Khabur head-waters, further west again to the Balikh River system …”. Most likely, it was the other way around, with Nimrod (= Sargon of Akkad/Halaf culture) firstly having established his kingdom in the “Sinjar region”, biblical “Shinar” (Genesis 10:10): “The first centers of his kingdom were Babylon, Uruk, Akkad and Kalneh, in Shinar. From that land he went to Assyria, where he built Nineveh, Rehoboth Ir, Calah and Resen, which is between Nineveh and Calah—which is the great city”.

 

Andrew Moore had, as we read before, argued for a contemporaneity of the Chacolithic phase of Halaf culture with the Neolithic IV of Palestine and Lebanon ….

Archaeologically, we are now on the eve of the city building phase (inspired by Nimrod?) that will be a feature of Syro-Palestine’s Early Bronze Age. Presumably the Canaanites were heavily involved in all of this work (Genesis 10:18): “… the Canaanite clans scattered and the borders of Canaan reached from Sidon toward Gerar as far as Gaza, and then toward Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboyim, as far as Lasha”.

 

Ham himself, though, son of Noah and father of Canaan, gave his name to the land of Egypt (e.g., Psalm 78:51): “He struck down all the firstborn of Egypt, the firstfruits of manhood in the tents of Ham” (http://www.topix.com/forum/afam/T2OTBS4EEA84MJ67P/p2):

 

“According to the Bible the ancient Egyptians were descended from Ham through the line of Mizraim. Ham had four sons: Cush, Mizraim, Phut, and Canaan (Genesis 10:6). The name "Mizraim" is the original name given for Egypt in the Hebrew Old Testament. Many Bibles will have a footnote next to the name "Mizraim" explaining that it means "Egypt." The name "Egypt" itself actually comes to us from the Greeks who gave the Land that name (i.e. "Aegyptos" from the Greek). In addition to the name "Mizraim," the ancient Egyptians also referred to their land as "Kemet" which means "Land of the Blacks." Western historians, however, say that the word "Kemet" refers to the color of the soil of the land rather than its people. But, the word "Kemet" is actually an ethnic term being a derivative of the word "Khem" (Cham or Ham) which means "burnt" or "black." Ham, who was one of the three sons of Noah and the direct ancestor of the Egyptians, was black”.

 

Similarly, Ham’s son, Cush (Genesis 10:6), is considered to be the father of the Cushite Ethiopians, who were (are) black.

 

Ham’s brother, Japheth, became the god-Father of the Indo-European peoples such as the Greeks, who would identify him as Iapetos, the Titan, and the Indians, who called him Prajapti, “Father Japheth”.

 

Regarding Shem, I follow the Jewish tradition that Shem was the great Melchizedek - which view is chronologically acceptable. Genesis 10:10-11: “Two years after the flood, when Shem was 100 years old, he became the father of Arphaxad. And after he became the father of Arphaxad, Shem lived 500 years [long enough to have been able to meet Abram] and had other sons and daughters”.