Thursday, March 17, 2016

The Problem of the “Nebuchadnezzar” in Book of Judith

by
 Damien F. Mackey
 
So difficult have commentators found it to secure an historical locus for the events described in the Book of Judith that the almost universal tendency today – for those who give the book at least some sort of credence as a recording of historical events – is to relegate the book to the category, or genre, of ‘historical fiction’, as, for instance, some kind of literary fusion of all the enemies (Assyrian, Babylonian, Persian, Greek, Syrian, etc.) with whom ancient Israel had ever had to contend.
Charles, for one, has proposed the likelihood of this particular genre to account for the Book of Judith: “But if the book is historical fiction, as it seems to be, we need not expect to explain all its statements. The writer selected such incidents as suited his purpose, without troubling about historical accuracy … The details are not meant to be historical”.
Such a view is perhaps not entirely surprising, considering that whoever might aspire to show the historicity of the book tends to stumble right at the very start, with verse 1:1:
“It was the twelfth year of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar, who ruled over the Assyrians in the great city of Nineveh. In those days Arphaxad ruled over the Medes in Ecbatana”.

At first appearance, we have here:
(i) A great Babylonian king, ‘Nebuchadnezzar’, ruling over
(ii) an Assyrian capital city, ‘Nineveh’ [that had ceased to exist several years before Nebuchednezzar II the Great’s rule] and whose contemporary rival, ‘Arphaxad’ [a historical unknown], was apparently
(iii) a Mede. For, as we learn a bit further on, in verse 5, the ruler of ‘Nineveh’ will make war on the Medes [who were in fact the allies of Nebuchednezzar II the Great]. And, to complete this potpourri, Nebuchadnezzar’s commander-in-chief, introduced into the narrative in chapter 2, will be found to have a name that is considered to be
(iv) Persian, ‘Holofernes’, as will be thought to be the case also with his chief eunuch, ‘Bagoas’.

No wonder, then, that earlier commentators had sought for the book’s historical locus in periods ranging over hundreds of years.
Thus, according to Charles: “Attempts have been made to identify the Nebuchadnezzar of the story with Assurbanipal, Xerxes I, Artaxerxes Ochus, Antiochus Epiphanes: Arphaxad with Deioces or Phraortes”.
Moore gives a similar list of candidates for BOJ’s ‘Nebuchadnezzar’:
Although a large number of Assyrian, Babylonian, Persian, and Syrian kings have been suggested by scholars as the particular pagan king in question …. Several rulers have had a goodly number of scholars supporting their identification with Judith’s “Nebuchadnezzar”, notably, Ashurbanipal of Assyria; Artaxerxes III, Ochus, of Persia; Antiochus IV, Epiphanes, of Syria; and Demetrius I, Soter, also of Syria.
To which Moore adds this intriguing point: “Ironically, the two Babylonian kings with the actual name “Nebuchadnezzar” (i.e., Nebuchadnezzar II and “Nebuchadnezzar IV”) have won virtually no supporters …”.
Apparently Nebuchednezzar I, whom I have identified with Sargon II/Sennacherib:

Nebuchednezzar I as the ‘Babylonian Face’ of Sargon II/Sennacherib

https://www.academia.edu/9584842/Nebuchednezzar_I_as_the_Babylonian_Face_of_Sargon_II_Sennacherib

is chronologically – in conventional terms – much too far out of range to be seriously considered as a candidate for the ‘Nebuchadnezzar’ of the Book of Judith.
Leahy has pointed to the following seeming “Historical Inaccuracies” in the book:

… (i) Nabuchodonosor [Nebuchadnezzar] bears the title ‘king of the Assyrians’ and is said to reign in Nineveh. But the historical Nabuchodonosor was king of the Neo-babylonian empire from 604 to 562 B.C. The Assyrian empire had then ceased to exist and so also had Nineveh which was destroyed in 612 B.C. (ii) The Assyrian monarchy is assumed to be still in existence, yet the following passages seem to assign the events narrated to the period following the Babylonian captivity – 4:3 (LXX) reads, ‘For they were lately come up from captivity … and the vessels, the altar and the house were sanctified after their profanation’; 5:18 f. (LXX) reads, “they were led captive into a land that was not theirs, and the temple of their God was cast to the ground (εγενήϑη εις εδαφος) … and now they are returned to their God, and are come up from the dispersion where they were dispersed, and have possessed Jerusalem where their sanctuary is’; 5:22 f. (Vg) reads, ‘many of them were led away captive into a strange land. But of late returning … they are come together … and possess Jerusalem again, where their sanctuary is’. Moreover other passages (e.g. 4:5) imply that there was no king reigning, for the supreme authority, even over the Northern Kingdom, was vested in the high-priest assisted by the Sanhedrin (ή γερουςία cf. LXX 4:8; 15:8). (iii) None of the known Median kings was named Arphaxad. (iv) Holofernes was a Persian as his name implies, and we should not expect a Persian in command of the Assyrian armies.
Another proponent of the historical fiction genre for the Book of Judith is Montague, whose explanation Moore has quoted in the context of whom he calls “present-day scholars who regard Judith as having “a certain historicity””:
The author, writing resistance literature under the rule of a foreign power, has used the Assyrians as types of the Greeks and used Nebuchadnezzar as a coded symbol for Antiochus the Illustrious, the Greek Seleucid king who persecuted the Jews. … the author reworked for this purpose a story whose historical nucleus went back two centuries, to the Persian period. … Thus, we can conclude that the book of Judith is historical in two senses: one, there is a historical nucleus which gave rise to the Judith tradition, though this nucleus is now difficult to recover; the other, the story witnesses to the way believing Jews of the post-exilic period understood the challenge of their existence when pressured by tyrants to abandon their sacred traditions. [italics added] (Books of Esther and Judith, p. 8).
But see e.g. my:
Book of Judith Not a Maccabean Product

https://www.academia.edu/22407237/Book_of_Judith_Not_a_Maccabean_Product

“Once scholars stopped regarding Judith as a purely historical account, they started looking for a more accurate characterization of its literary genre”, writes Moore, who adds:

Starting with Martin Luther, who characterized Judith as a poem, “a kind of allegorical … passion play,” … scholars have had continued difficulty in establishing the precise genre of the story. To say that the book is a fictional account where historical and geographical details serve a literary purpose, while somewhat helpful, is not precise enough. In other words, exactly what kind of fiction is it?”
“Perhaps the most popular hypothesis among scholars”, according to Moore, “has been what might be called the two-accounts theory”:

… that is, the book of Judith consists of two parts of unequal length: (1) a “historical” account of a pagan’s war in the East and/or his subsequent invasion of the West (chaps. 1-3); and (2) the story of Judith’s deliverance of her people (chaps. 4-16). While these two sections of the Judith-story are sometimes thought to reflect the same historical period, more often scholars have thought otherwise, especially those scholars who view the story of Judith itself as being essentially fictitious.

Judith Long Considered
to have been Historical

According to Leahy, on the other hand, there is a very long tradition of historicity associated with the Book of Judith:

(a) Jewish and Christian tradition and all commentaries prior to the sixteenth century regarded the book as historical; (b) the minute historical, geographical, chronological and genealogical details indicate a straightforward narrative of real events; (c) the author speaks of descendants of Achior being alive in his time (14:6), and of a festival celebrated annually up to his day in commemoration of Judith’s victory (16:31).
And Pope thinks that the variants in the present text indicate a most ancient original: “With regard to the state of the text it should be noted that the extraordinary variants presented in the various versions are themselves a proof that the versions were derived from a copy dating from a period long antecedent to the time of its translators”.
Moore continues on with certain arguments in favour of the Book of Judith historicity, beginning with this general remark: “The book purports to be a historical account. Moreover, it has all the outward trappings of one, including various kinds of dates, numerous names of well-known persons and places, and, most important of all, a quite believable plot”. All of this data – what Leahy called “the minute historical, geographical, chronological and genealogical details [that] indicate a straightforward narrative of real events” – was what impressed upon me (back in the early 1980’s, my first recollection of having read the Book of Judith) that here was an account of a real history (albeit an anciently written one). Moore again:
Typical of genuine historical accounts, Judith includes a number of quite specific dates …:

the twelfth year … of Nebuchadnezzar (1:1)
In [Nebuchadnezzar’s] seventeenth year (1:13)
in the eighteenth year on the twenty-second day of the first month (2:1)

and exact periods of time:

feasted for four whole months (1:16)
stayed there a full month (3:10)
blockaded them for thirty-four days (7:20)
hold out for five more days (7:30)
a widow … for three years and four months (8:4)
It took the people a month to loot the camp (15:11)
For three months the people continued their celebrations in Jerusalem (16:20)

Substantially, the details in the Book of Judith find their place, as I have argued, in the era of king Hezekiah of Judah (c. 700 BC), largely in the conflict between the neo-Assyrians and the Jews, e.g.:

“Nadin went into everlasting darkness”
 
https://www.academia.edu/7177604/_Nadin_went_into_everlasting_darkness_

though names have been confused and certain later foreign elements appear to have been interpolated. I put down these anomalies and interpolations largely to copyists’ mistakes and ignorance (historical and geographical) on the part of the later editors and translators.
This last is not just an excuse. The so-called ‘pseudepigraphal’ books of Tobit and Judith were extremely popular down through the centuries and were copied many times, with mistakes inevitably creeping in.
In the light of such explanations, let us try to restore to pristine condition that extremely problematical beginning to the Book of Judith, whilst locating it to what I believe to be its proper historical setting (1:1, 5):
It was the twelfth year of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar, who ruled over the Assyrians in the great city of Nineveh. In those days Arphaxad ruled over the Medes in Ecbatana.
… Then King Nebuchadnezzar made war against King Arphaxad in the great plain that is on the borders of Ragau.
“Twelfth year”. Sargon II (my Sennacherib), king of Assyria, had, in his “twelfth year”, successfully waged an eastern war against a stubborn opponent, Merodach-baladan. Sargon tells us: “In my twelfth year of reign (Merodach-baladan) …. For 12 years, against the will (heart) of the gods, he held sway over Babylon …”.
Moreover, I have proposed in my “Nebuchednezzar I” article (referred to above) that the so-called ‘Middle’ Babylonian king, Nebuchednezzar I, was in fact Sargon II/Sennacherib as ruler of Babylon. Sennacherib in fact began to rule Babylon even before his rule over Assyria had commenced.
This, if correct, would immediately account for one of the Book of Judith’s most controversial details, having a king named ‘Nebuchadnezzar’ ruling over the Assyrians at Nineveh!
Given this premise, then the Book of Judith’s Arphaxad, with whom the Assyrian king fought in his Year 12, can only be Merodach-baladan of Babylon (cf. 2 Kings 20:12; Isaiah 39:1). Merodach-baladan’s rule over Chaldea and the Chaldeans seems to be reflected in the name, ‘Arphaxad’ (Ur-pa-chesed), i.e., ‘Ur of the Chaldees’. And that is confirmed by what we are told in verse 6: “Thus, many nations joined the forces of the Chaldeans”, including the “Elymeans” (Elamites), perennial allies of Babylon against Assyria.
Thus we can probably now isolate, as copyists’ mistakes, “Medes” and “Ecbatana” in 1:1, and also the associated “Ragau” mentioned in 1:5.
Arphaxad/Merodach-baladan did not ‘rule over the Medes’, at least not primarily, as the current translations of Judith 1:1 would have it. And this seems to be underlined by the fact that verse 6 identifies his army as Chaldean, without any mention here of the Medes.
Possibly, then, Judith 1:1 can be historically reconstructed as follows:

It was the twelfth year of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar [Nebuchednezzar I], who ruled over the Assyrians in the great city of Nineveh. In those days Arphaxad [Merodach-baladan] ruled over the Medes [Chaldeans] in Ecbatana [Babylon] ….

Book of Judith Suggests Sargon as Sennacherib


Sargon II Lion Hunting


by

 

Damien F. Mackey

 

 

 

Now, there is only the one Assyrian king, ‘Nebuchadnezzar’ … ruling throughout the entire drama of the Book of Judith, and he has likenesses to ‘both’ Sennacherib and Sargon II. Thus:

 

• (As Sennacherib) The incident to which the climax of the Book of Judith drama could be referring, if historical, is the defeat of Sennacherib’s army of 185,000; yet

• (As Sargon II) The Assyrian king in Judith 1 seems to equate well with Sargon, inasmuch as he commences a war against a Chaldean king in his Year 12.

 

So it might be asked: Was the Book of Judith’s Assyrian king, Sargon or Sennacherib?

 

The question of course becomes irrelevant if it is one and the same king. See e.g. my:

 


 


 

 

Sargon II

 


Sennacherib

 

[Stylistic likeness and even personal likeness in the case of both the king and of the accompanying official]

 

 

The Book of Tobit was, like the Book of Judith, a popular and much copied document. The incidents described in the former are written down as having occurred during the successive reigns of ‘Shalmaneser’, ‘Sennacherib’ and ‘Esarhaddon’. No mention at all there of Sargon, not even as father of Sennacherib. Instead, we read: “But when Shalmaneser died, and his son Sennacherib reigned in his place ...” (1:15).

Moreover this ‘Shalmaneser’, given as father of Sennacherib, is also referred to as the Assyrian king who had taken into captivity Tobit’s tribe of Naphtali (vv. 1-2); a deed generally attributed to Tiglath-pileser III and conventionally dated about a decade before the reign of Sargon II.

This would seem to strengthen my suspicion that Shalmaneser V was actually Tiglath-pileser III:

 


 


 

The neo-Assyrian chronology as it currently stands seems to be, like the Sothic chronology of Egypt - though on a far smaller scale - over-extended and thus causing a stretching of contemporaneous reigns, such as those of Merodach-baladan II of Babylonia, Mitinti of ‘Ashdod’ and Deioces of Media.

There are reasons nonetheless, seemingly based upon solid primary evidence, for believing that the conventional historians have got it right and that their version of the neo-Assyrian succession is basically the correct one. However, much of the primary data is broken and damaged, necessitating heavy bracketting. On at least one significant occasion, the name of a king has been added into a gap based on a preconception.

Who is to say that this has not happened more than once?

Esarhaddon’s own history is so meagre that recourse must be had to his Display Inscriptions, thereby leaving the door open for “errors” as according to Olmstead.

With the compilers of the conventional neo-Assyrian chronology having mistaken one king for two, as I am arguing to have occurred in the case of Sargon II/Sennacherib, and probably also with Tiglath-pileser III/Shalmaneser V, then one ends up with duplicated situations, seemingly unfinished scenarios, and of course anomalous or anachronistic events.

Thus, great conquests are claimed for Shalmaneser V whose records are virtually a “blank”. Sargon II is found to have been involved in the affairs of a Cushite king who is well outside Sargon’s chronological range; while Sennacherib is found to be ‘interfering’ in events well within the reign of Sargon II, necessitating a truncation of Sargon’s effective reign in order to allow Sennacherib to step in early, e.g. in 714 BC, “the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah” (2 Kings 18:13; Isaiah 36:1), and in 713 BC (tribute from Azuri of ‘Ashdod’).

Again, Sargon II claims ‘former’ conquests of regions though there appears to have been no follow up by him (i.e. as Sargon); the follow up being found only in Sennacherib’s records. One often has to ask, and to try to discover, if a certain event occurred in the reign of Sargon or of Sennacherib. Eponym trends, literary trends, colonisation trends (e.g. at ‘Ashdod’) can be perfectly consistent from Sargon on to Esarhaddon and Ashurbanipal, as long as the inconsistent, tradition-breaking Sennacherib is left out of the picture.

 

Sargon is virtually missing from Nineveh.

Sennacherib is missing from Dur-Sharrukin.

 

Sennacherib is missing the last decade of his Annals. Sargon is prolix about a region of campaign where Sennacherib is correspondingly brief about his own adventures in that region. And vice versa. Sargon will give a detailed account of his famous conquest of ‘Ashdod’ (identified in this thesis as Lachish); though pictorial representation of it is lacking. Sennacherib conquers the mighty Lachish, and lavishes his throne room with pictorial detail of this triumph; but hardly mentions it in writing.

These are simply I believe the two faces of the one coin, Sargon II = Sennacherib; ‘Ashdod’ = Lachish; and the two faces need to be put together if we are to make the ‘currency’ functional:

 


 


 

Admittedly, there are problems in connection with my revision, especially with regard to Esarhaddon’s titulary; but I think they are well outweighed by the anomalies, duplications and anachronisms resulting from the conventional structure.

New foundations are needed for, as revisionist Eric Aitchison proclaimed, “we wax so bold as to challenge this perceived snug arrangement” of conventional Assyro-Babylonian history. To establish the era of King Hezekiah on firm foundations (my thesis):

 

A Revised History of the Era of King Hezekiah of Judah

and its Background

 


 

one ought to take seriously that five-fold synchronism cross-checking

 

  1. Hezekiah and
  2. Hoshea, with
  3. the fall of Samaria, at the hands of
  4. Sargon of Assyria, who in turn has provided a chronological link with
  5. Merodach-baladan.

 

 

 

 

http://transformingtruth.org/assets/Hezekia-King-of-Tested-Trust.jpg