Judaism
Puzzles in the History of Israel and Judah 2
Abstract
All those who have been occupied with and have written about the story of the ancient Hebrews are not historians by profession… almost without exception, they are all professors of theology.Professor Giovanni Garbini
© Dr M D Magee
Contents Updated: Friday, 07 June 2002
Abstract
Ahab to Jereboam
In the scriptures, Omri’s son, Ahab, married the daughter of the king of the Sidonians (1 Kg 16:32) but Josephus, in Antiquities, says it was the daughter of Ithbaal of Tyre and Sidon. Either way, Soggin thinks that Jezebel was not her proper name because it means “Without Glory”, so it was an insulting nickname. It could however have meant “Baal Unifies” or be a deliberately distorted form of “Baal Sows”, in which case it is the equivalent of Jezreel (“God (El) Sows”), the name of the valley which is prominent in the story and which is considered cognate with “Israel”, but with Baal as the theophoric element. So the respectable name of the queen in fertility religions was punned into disrespect.
Jezebel is set up to be what she is recognized as being—a wicked foreign woman. She has extraordinary power and can only be a literary figure. She is the fairy tale witch, and they are demonized goddesses. If she was really such a power and influence over her husband, the bible negates it by having him call his children by the acceptable theophoric names, Ahaziah and Jehoram (Joram).
In 1 Kings 17:1ff, the two fertility gods, Baal and Yehouah are in conflict, and Yehouah and his prophet Elijah, whose name (“My God is Yehouah”) is curiously appropriate to the job, succeed. The conflict will reflect genuine rivalry between different fertility gods, both sons of El, that was part of Canaanite culture and myth. An ostrocon found in Samaria had the name “Egelyau” scratched on it. It means “The Calf is Yehouah.” The high god of the Canaanites, El, was a bull, and the name suggesting that a calf was Yehouah, means that Yehouah was a son of the bull, El. A small bronze bull has been found at a High Place, in Samaria. So, Yehouah might have been worshipped as a calf, as the bible implies but wants to reject.
The Persians, after the “Return” eventually favoured Yehouah and so the outcome was clear to the original founders of Judaism, but probably reflected the growing preference among Canaanites for Yehouah anyway.
The first biblical king of Israel was Jeroboam, called Jeroboam I because there is another Jeroboam who ruled Israel in the eighth century. Jeroboam is the only Jewish royal name that needs a number added to distinguish one from another. All other kings of Israel and Judah have names unused by other kings of the same country.
In the scriptures, Jeroboam fled to Egypt and was received by Shishak (1 Kg 11:26,40). This would have been possible for Jeroboam II as well as Jeroboam I! In the Hebrew bible, Shishak appears as Shishak or Shoshaq but he is not Pharaoh. His title is “king of Egypt”, suggesting that he was a minor king ruling at a time of division. Sheshonq III ruled in Egypt from 835 BC to 783 BC while Jeroboam II became co-regent in 794 BC and sole ruler in 781, and ruled until 754 BC. He could therefore have sheltered with a Sheshonq in Egypt before he became ruler. Why should Sheshonq I have attacked Jeroboam I, supposedly an ally? The inconsistencies suggest that different Sheshonqs and Jereboams are involved. The bible has confused people in the eighth century with people in the tenth. Biblicists will not seriously consider such possibilities.
The Aramaean Wars of Ahab and Jehoshaphat seem to be baseless. Anonymous stories have been attributed to the kings but they could have originally been set anywhere or nowhere. The reason is that Assyrian records suggest the exact opposite. In the time of Omri and his successors, the Aramaean kingdoms were in alliance against Assyria and not fighting against each other. The scriptural tales are invented for a non-historical purpose—to illustrate true and false prophecy. This was an aim of the Persians and the Deuteronomists who wanted to impress on the locals how to make the right choices. Shalmaneser III (858-824 BC), possibly the real Solomon, campaigned against the west for several seasons in his reign and mentions Omri. The annals of this king also say the Aramaean kingdoms were in alliance—Ahab, Hadadezer and Irkuleni fought againaist him at Karkar on the Orontes in 853 BC. Ahab is depicted in the bible as a major element of the allies.
The Assyrians claimed victory, but it was either not a victory or it was indicisive because further battles were fought with the alliance in 849 BC, 848 BC and 845 BC. Possibly these were punitive attacks to enforce payment of tribute, but they show the alliance in action, so the Aramaean states were unlikely to have been fighting each other, as the Jewish scriptures make out, and they affirm quite the opposite political and military situation—the alliance had a ferocious common enemy. The bible is silent about the wars against Shalmaneser, and the battle of Karkar never happened in the holy history!
J Strange noticed that Jehoram was the name of simultaneous kings of Judah and Israel, and thought they might have been the same man. Strange is unlikely to think that Israel and Judah were different names for the same place, but the best explanation of the peculiarities of the accounts of the two is that they were. A Jehoram or Joram reigned in both Israel and Judah from about 852 to 841 BC. No other Jehoram ever ruled in either country. The Israel Jehoram was preceded by an Ahaziah, supposedly his brother who ruled for a single year. The Judah Jehoram was followed by an Ahaziah, supposedly his son, who ruled only in the year 841 BC.
Not much later than Jehoram, two more kings with the same name, Jehoash or Joash, were contemporaries, though not precisely—Jehoash of Judah 835-796 BC) and Jehoash of Judah (798-782 BC). These are amazing coincidences, and look very much as though the same men are serving in two capacities, or that there was really only a single kingdom, anyway, and some kings are made to appear twice. The monarchy was never divided except for brief periods of rebellion. Judah only existed independently when Israel ceased to be.
Only the biblical texts which form part of the Deuteronomistic and Chronistic history provide material for reconstructing the period of the kingdom of Judah which extends from the end of the tenth century to the middle of the eighth century BC.J Alberto Soggin
Put bluntly, the divided monarchy could all be a myth and fiction and no one would know any better. Judah appears on the scene only a few years before Israel disappears from real history suggesting that it only separated itself from Israel about the time that Israel was subsumed by Assyria. The king lists admit that both countries had the same kings, although a lot of mythical ones have been invented for Judah.
Ostraca found in Samaria are inscribed with hypocoristic names incorporating Baal, like Abibaal, Baala, Baalzamar, Baalzakar. In the bible, Ahab, an Israelitish king who is an idolator, calls his children names incorporating the god Yehouah—Ahaziah, Athaliah and Jehoram. Why should the idolatrous king have done this when his people favoured Baal? Athaliah (“Yehouah is Great”), whose brother is Israelite Jehoram, marries Judah Jehoram and introduced the worship of Baal into Judah, the bible says. She is so much opposed to Yehouah that she refused to worship in the “House of Yehouah”, and was overthrown and killed in a coup which began in the temple. She evidently retained her theophoric name in Yehouah, though.
Sela (Selah), the capital of ancient Edom (2 Kg 14:7-8), is unknown, but seemed to be a stronghold shut in by mountain cliffs. The word means “rock” and is often mistranslated simply as rock in the bible when the place is obviously meant. It must have been the same place as Petra, the capital later of the Nabataean Arabs. Petra is “rock” in Greek. The trouble is that detailed excavations of Petra show it was founded not before about 700 BC and so could not have been conquered by Amaziah (798-767 BC) and renamed by him Joktheel after he had pleasantly thrown 10,000 of the city’s people over the edge of the cliff (2 Chr 25:12). It suggests that the history of Judah before the middle of the eighth century is fictitious.
According to the Jewish scriptures, Jehu (Iaua, Yehouah) came to the throne by a coup d’etat and so was not an Omride, but the Assyrian records seem to think he was. Jehu, it seems, overthrew not Jehoram but Ahab, who had lost control, and, perhaps by killing his two sons, united the kingdom of Samaria again.
A coup seems to have occurred about the same time in Syria where Hazael, described in the Assyrian inscriptions as a “son of no-one”, implying he was a usurper, came to the throne. The outcome was the end of the alliance against Assyria. The best explanation of this is Assyrian machinations. Pro-Assyrian factions had seized power. Jehu appears on Shalmaneser’s black obilisk in his first year (841 BC, see above) in abject submission in the Moslem style of obeisance, the only king of Israel pictured by contemporaries. Even though Israel and Aram were both Assyrian vassals, the bible depicts them as warring. Usually vassalage treaties forbade local wars.
The scriptural plot is that Syria, Israel and Judah were at loggerheads from now on. It implies that Israel had a policy of favouring Assyria against Syria. 2 Kings 13:5 mentions a “saviour” who relieved Israel from the Syrians. It might have been Adad-nirari III who marched west several times and eventually forced Damascus into vassalage (797 BC). Adad-niriri lists Joash as a tribute payer. Joash might have been the Assyrian puppet or nominee in Israel. The bible depicts Joash as again fighting Syrians. He also fought Amaziah of Judah taking treasure and hostages back to Samaria (2 Kg 14:8-14).
The biblical author contrives a continuous dynasty of David in Judah, but Judah did not even exist, except perhaps as a region, at this time. Several of the kings look dubious as part of the Davidic line. Joash was hidden in the temple for six years then emerged as a king, a popular ruse of usurpers wanting to claim legitimacy, especially in the ANE at that time, seeming to give God’s approval. Mario Liverani has convincingly shown that this was a favourite mythical theme of the ancient near east—the young son who returns from obscurity to retrieve his birthright. It is the stuff of fairy tales and occurs often in the bible. This Joash of Judah, a contemporary of Joash of Israel, is an example. In fact, no one knows whether such a pretender is genuine. Joash is produced by the priest after six years, presented as the rightful heir to the throne, and on that basis, the wicked queen is killed. The priest could more easily have planned it all, picked a boy to play the heir and assured the people of its truth. If the queen was unpopular, they would have readily accepted it, true or not. And, if this was history, the cunning priest resurrected the dynasty of David after it had been expunged. If so, later kings, though of the line of David, were not genetically of the same line.
Jeroboam II (786-746 BC) of Israel gets only 2 Kings 14:23-29 to cover the 40 years of his reign, even though he restored the empire of David and Solomon—except for the allegedly independent state of Judah. That he reigned the magical 40 years, like David and Solomon, does not give us confidence that his history is likely to be true.
The bible shows him conquering Phœnicia, Damascus, Hamath and apparently Ammon and Moab. The excuse given by scholars for this military success is the same as that given for the growth of the tenth century empire—Assyria was temporarily weak! If this is at all true, it will be the source of the legends of David, Solomon and the earlier Jeroboam—by retrogression. Even so, it seems unlikely that any such a large kingdom was carved out of Assyrian vassals unless it was really a romanticized reference to the alliance of these states against the Assyrians, with Jeroboam fictiously put at their head. Since there was no such empire, when Jeroboam dies the kingdom broke up for the second time! It make’s Solomon’s empire a romanticized version of this eighth century alliance.
2 Kings 14:28, an imperfect text, suggests Jeroboam occupied Damascus. Jeroboam might really have profited from the Assyrian conquest of Damascus, and been allowed to administer Syrian land in Transjordan. If so, he was a puppet or military agent of Assyria.
Uzziah to the Assyrian Conquest
Two seals have been found of officials of the ruler, ’zyw (Uzziah), a northerner, judging from his name ending in yw. He must have been a northern leader and therefore a king of Samaria, but the only Uzziah in the bible was a long lived ruler of Judah—Uzziah, king of Judah for 50 years, 25 as a regent with his father Amaziah, and 25 in his own right (791-740 BC).
A small slab little more than a foot square in the Israel museum in Jerusalem seems to confirm the king, mentioning the bones of Uzziah, in an Aramaic inscription which said:
To this place have been transferred the bones of Uzziah king of Judah. Let no one open it.
E L Sukenik claims to have found an found it some time in 1931. Epigraphy dates the inscription to between 50 BC and 50 AD, around the time of Jesus, 800 years after Uzziah was supposed to have lived. Other than this there is no extra-biblical evidence that Uzziah, such a long-lived ruler, ever lived at all! Sukenik claims to have found the inscription among others in the Russian Church on the Mount of Olives, where they had supposedly been since the time of Archimandrite Antony (1865-1894), but there is no other evidence of this. Sukenik also speaks of “inscriptions” but only got round to publishing this one. Archimandrite Antony knew no Hebrew and sent notes of Hebrew inscriptions for translation to D Chwolson, whose own records do not mention any Uzziah inscription. The accepted collection of classic Jewish inscriptions has not valued it enough to include it, and both A Vincent as early as 1932, and G Garbini in 1985 have declared the inscription so doubtful that it must be forged. Either Sukenik was responsible or he was a dupe.
Uzziah is another way of writing Azariah, and this biblical Uzziah was also called Azariah. An Azariah seemed to be mentioned by Tiglath-pileser III as leader of a north Syrian coalition of cities (738 BC) in a textual fragment which read “…yau KUR yaudi”. Soggin writes that “the chronology of the period is controversial”, and some now date this inscription to the time of Sennacherib, saying it must refer to Hezekiah. Maybe, but there is cause to be doubtful. The reference to Yaudi here is the name of the northern Aramaean kingdom that biblicists never speak of as too confusing for their flocks. There were two Judahs! Emil Kraeling, author of an history of the Aramaeans, said Azriyau, though he had Yehouah in his name, was ruler of the northern city of Yaudi (Samal) not Judah. Azriyau of Yaudi was a usurper who sought alliances with the “Nineteen districts of Hamath” against Assyria. This rebel was beseiged in his city or in a mountain fortress by the Assyrians and seems to have been killed. Kraeling warns he was not to be confused with his contemporary, Azariah of Yehud (Judah), though plainly only the authority of the bible can explain this assertion. The author of Chronicles adds to the confusion. He has a king Uzziah opposed by a High Priest called, Azariah!
Though the biblical Uzziah reigned for a remarkably long time, he was supposedly confined for much of it in the chamber of death with leprosy, and his sons Jotham and Jehoahaz (Ahaz) acted for him in matters of state. Contemporary with this Uzziah in the eighth century was a Hiram in Tyre, a Rezin in Damascus and a state of Saba (Sheba) in Arabia ruled by Queens. Garbini surmises that whoever this long-lived king was, he has been mythologized by the biblical author as a king living 200 years earlier—Solomon. It left a long gap in the fictional history that never got filled properly but was stopped up with the notion of a leprous king barely mentionable though he ruled for half a century.
The pair of biblicist crooks W F Albright and N Glueck identified a seal found by Glueck at tell el-Keleifeh by the Gulf of Elath as inscribed “Property of Ytam” and deduced it was the property of king Jotham. Honest scholars noted that the palaeography placed it at least 100 years later than the supposed king Jotham.
Tiglath-pileser III founded the new Assyrian empire after 745 BC. Unlike previous kings who depended on booty alone, he based his new empire on a centralised government, taxing provinces. So, whereas before the conquerors came and went only to come again, like bandits, the new idea was to annex conquered places and incorporate them into the taxable provincial system. Tiglath-pileser III made conquered countries into provinces, divided into easily managed and taxed districts, as in Hamath.
H Donner, writing in Israelite and Judaean History, edited by Hayes and Miller, explains that the stages of incorporating a defeated nation like Israel into the empire were:
- A traditional vassalage treaty—limited soverignty, payment of tribute and yielding of all foreign policy initiatives to the suzerain.
- Any sign of the breaking of the treaty was considered a rebellion, the ruler was deposed and a puppet (perhaps disenchanted royalty) appointed. His kingdom however was reduced, the annexed portions taken directly into Assyrian administration, and much of anything that remained was parcelled out to loyal vassals of Assyria. Tribute was increased.
- Any further dissent and the king was deposed and replaced by an Assyrian governor, the country was absorbed into empire, and the ruling elite was deported and replaced by a different ethnic leadership transported in from somewhere else where there had been trouble.
- The system was loose, and subject to variation depending on many factors, and personal whims.
The neo-Assyrians were unusual in keeping a permanent professional army equipped with chariots and with a cavalry, perhaps learned from the Medes, Persians and Scythians. It also used terror to force submission, and such tactics are depicted in the Jewish scriptures as being those of the Israelites. Cities that did not submit were often sacked and destroyed—their citizens murdered or deported to distant places. Those who remained had to pay large tributes. It is also true that the Assyrians made use of spies, agents and propagandists called “prophets” to sow dissension, demoralisation and terror in advance of the Assyrian armies. Much of the shocking reputation the Assyrians had might have been spread by their own agents spreading fear (Isa 5:26-29).
First Tiglath-pileser had to suppress the powerful kingdom of Van (Urartu, Chaldia) which ruled north and west of Assyria, around Lake Van, and in northern Syria around Urfa. Sarduris was its king. The Chaldians were allied with the small Aramaean states of north Syria but the alliance was defeated at Commagene and 73,000 prisoners were taken.
In 742 BC, Arpad was seiged and fell two years later. The Assyrians thereafter had the whole of Syria at their mercy. The Assyrian king seemed bent on punishing the rebellious Aramaean states. Hamath was defeated and its rulers transported to Armenia, to administer part of the recently conquered Urartu. Nineteen districts of Hamath seem to have been annexed to Assyria. Other kings of small states rushed to offer tribute, including Menahem of Samaria who is mentioned in Assyrian tablets.
Three years later the king was again in punitive mode in Urartu. He devastated the country but the capital city, Van itself, held out. The remaining alliance broke up in mutual recrimination and antagonism. In 738 BC, Assyria had reduced Israel and Syria to vassalage. Damascus, Ammon, Israel, Moab and Philistia were all punished but king Ahaz of Judah supported Assyria.
Ahaz was at this time not the king but, the biblicists say, was the co-regent acting for his father Jotham, who remained king until 732 BC. Ahaz himself never ruled alone, except for the years 732 to 730 BC, because in 729 BC, he made Hezekiah his co-regent! No one seems to wonder at the timid nature of the Judahite kings, many of whom had to have been co-regents of their fathers for peculiarly long times, then appointed their sons co-regents almost as soon as they had the throne themselves. Amaziah (795-767 BC) appointed his mysterious son, Uzziah, co-regent in 791 BC, so the two reigned in tandem for 25 years. Uzziah (766-740 BC) became king in his own right and appointed Jotham co-regent in 750 BC. He was supposed to have been cursed with leprosy, so the latter does not seem outrageous but Amaziah’s weakness seems bizarre. The same is not true of the kings of Israel except Jeroboam II. He was co-regent with his father for 13 of his father’s 15 year reign, but beside him only two other kings were co-regents, and they look much more likely because they became co-regents only towards the end of their father’s reigns. Many scholars puzzle over it but cannot bring themselves to think, “phony!”
Pekah (740-731 BC), who was a usurper in Israel, according to the bible, rewrote history himself, claiming he was king at the same time as Menahem (753-742 BC) and Pekahiah (742-741 BC). Israel was probably factionalized into pro- and anti-Assyrian parties, and different pretenders had arisen to the throne, financed from abroad—the Assyrians or the Allies. This was the time when political dissension was sown in Israel, and Judah might have split off under the pro-Assyrian Ahaz.
The biblical story is that Rezin II of Syria and Pekah of Israel attacked Ahaz for no clear reason but failed to capture Jerusalem in the so-called Syro-Ephraimite war. Menahem of Israel and Rezin of Damascus are both mentioned in Assyrian stelae. In fact, the Allies, Israel and Syria, seem to have tried to punish and depose Ahaz as the first step of defying their Assyrian overlords. The Philistines and Edomites seem to have been part of the alliance, if the bible is to be trusted here.
The bible makes out that Ahaz now appealed to Assyria for assistance, though he seemed to have been an Assyrian puppet anyway, whence the assault on him by the allies. He is supposed to have introduced an Assyrian altar modelled on one seen in Damascus. So, Ahaz appealed to the Assyrians and they punished Syria and Israel for their incursions. Ahaz was indeed a vassal of Tiglath-pileser III who mentions him (Jehoahaz) as paying tribute and being part of the Assyrian army that conquered Syria.
The allies had to attend to the Assyrian punitive expedition, so abandoned the attack on Jerusalem, but Damascus fell after a two year seige in 732 BC, becoming an Assyrian province. Its elite were transported to Kir (2 Kg 16:9). The propaganda (Amos 9:7) was that they were being returned to their true home! While Israel had its rulers deported, it was reduced only to the extent of the Palestinian hills. At the same time Hoshea (731-723 BC) was set up as an Assyrian puppet king in Israel.
Assyrian records say that Pekah was overthrown by the people, so the usurper was usurped, and Hoshea replaced him. The tribute laid upon Hoshea by the Assyrians was enormous, ten talents of gold and a thousand talents of silver. A talent was about 30 kg (66 lbs). The best explanation is that Hoshea was made puppet king not only of Israel, but Aram (Syria, Damascus) as well, but he failed to stay loyal and invited further punishment and annexation.
In 731 BC, Tiglath-pileser III marched against Babylon and became its king. Salmaneser V succeeded Tiglath-pileser III in 727 BC and Sargon succeeded him in 722 BC.
Hoshea acted as a puppet should at first, but seems to have been tempted into rebellion by the change of ruler in Assyria. He refused tribute to the new king, Shalmaneser V, and broke the vassalage treaty by negotiating with Egypt. He allied with the weak twenty fourth dynasty Egyptian king of Sais. Shalmameser responded by invading Hoshea’s domain and put him down and captured Hoshea after several years, showing that he had the resources of more than just a petty kingdom.
Shalmaneser died just as victory was secured, and the population of Israel was deported under Sargon II. So, Sargon completed the subjugation, ended the Samarian monarchy and destroyed the town, deporting the rulers and bringing in foreign ones, admitting Israel to the empire as the province of Samerina (Samaria), the name applying to the whole country not just the principal town about 72o BC. The people brought in seem to have been from Syria, so to a degree the ruling elite of Syria were swapped for the ruling elite of Israel, Sargon, seeming to be saying to the deported rulers: “If you are so keen on allying with each other see whether you like ruling your allies!” The colonists rebuilt the city from 715 BC. All the cities of Samaria seem to have been destroyed suggesting Assyrian anger at Israelite defiance. Ezra (Ezra 4:2,10) says that more foreigners were transported in under Esarhaddon and Assurbanipal.
The city of Samaria was rebuilt and became the seat of the Assyrian governor, as the Assyrians themselves tell us. Samaria became a more prosperous country. It was simply no longer an independent country but had been taken into Assyria as a tax paying province.
The bible makes out that the people who moved in voluntarily adopted the religion of the land, that of Yehouah. The bible also makes out that the people who later moved out to Babylonia, or wherever, remained loyal to Yehouah. People do not change their allegiance to their gods at the drop of a hat, so why did the people moving into Samaria chose to adopt the religion of Yehouah but those who were moved out did not? The power of the “True God” would be the Christian and Jewish answer. The historical answer would have to be that people who were transported were obliged to adopt and defend the religion of the place they were moved to, according to the prescriptions of their conquerors.
A ruling elite would not immediately adopt the religion of the peasants they had to rule, unless they were obliged to. The same would have applied to any Israelite moved elsewhere, which is why the supposed ten northern tribes disappeared. They would not have had the option of retaining their own religion simply because often deported people were ethnically mixed by the conquerors further to weaken them, and make them dependent on the victors. Those coming into Samaria seem to have been a mixed bunch.
The mixed class of rulers had to defend the god they were told to defend, usually the god of the land or city they were deported into, but according to the manner the conquerors laid down. They had to “restore” the religion, and they had the right to because they had to present themselves to the peasants as a former ruling class deported long ago, and being returned by the grace of the victorious king! The Yehouah that the Persian colonists restored to Yehud was not the Yehouah that the earlier Assyrian colonists had restored in Samaria, and neither was the Yehouah of the original Canaanites. That is why the colonists could not accept help from the natives—they were not promoting the same religion.
