by
Damien F.
Mackey
To
the good friend who wrote this about the geography of the Book of Tobit:
Tobias and the
Tigris.
Several
possibilities exist here. It is not unknown for several streams to bear the
same name, nor is it impossible that the swiftest road into Media was a highway
which was accessed by Tobias traveling to the real Tigris River to connect with
this route.
….
I
would reply:
What
I have often argued with early Genesis, especially the Six Days and the Flood,
is that a ‘surface’ reading of a biblical text may sometimes lead one to a
conclusion that is far from what the original scribe(s) intended, and often far
also from common sense. Such I believe to be the case, too, with standard
versions of the Book of Tobit with regard to its geography. If we would believe
the text as it currently stands, the angel Raphael was leading young Tobias (my
prophet Job) a merry dance inasmuch as, with a starting point at Assyrian
Nineveh, and with the aim of arriving at Rages near Ecbatana in Media –
Ecbatana being some 185 miles east of Nineveh – the angel brings Tobias in the
evening to the river Tigris, directly west of Nineveh.
No
wonder then that, on this basis, The
Jerusalem Bible says that “the geography is inexact”, and that Fr. D. Dumm (article,
“Tobit”) in The Jerome Biblical
Commentary, exclaims that:
“[The angel] Raphael knows the journey of life far
better than the route to Media!”
Unfortunately,
though, Fr. Dumm just leaves it at that, without being willing, or able, to
defend the accuracy of the Bible with a proper explanation of what is happening
here.
But
we need to go to other versions of the Book of Tobit to find the solution.
There
is no geographical support in the Book of Tobit for an eastwards journey, from
Nineveh to the classical Media (Ecbatana and Rhages):
For
one, the River Tigris is west of Nineveh;
And,
whilst the Median Rhages is in the plain, with Ecbatana being in the mountains,
the Book of Tobit has Ecbatana in the plain and Rages in the mountains (see
below);
And
again, Charan (Haran), in Syria, is, according to the Douay version of Tobit,
‘midway’ between Nineveh and ‘Media’;
And
furthermore, whereas the journey from Tobit’s Ecbatana to Rages normally took
“two full days”, the almost 200-mile journey from the Median Ecbatana to Rhages
would have taken significantly longer. In fact it took the army of Alexander
the Great 11 days at full gallop to march from the one to the other. Rightly
then does Jan Simons observe (according to a Median context) that the journey
referred to in the Book of Tobit “would be a forced ‘journey of two days’ even
for an express messenger”.
Thankfully,
however, there are versions of the Book of Tobit that set us aright, with
Ecbatana becoming “Bathania” (the Roman province of Batanaea), that is, the
fertile Bashan, east of the River Jordan in Palestine, and Media becoming
“Midian”.
Thus
the angel Raphael knows exactly what he is doing. Why, did he not inform the
anxious Tobit that he knew the way thoroughly (as an angel would know)?
So
we find that the real angel Raphael was escorting the young Tobias, not
eastwards, but westwards from Nineveh, to the Tigris crossing, then to Haran,
and on to Bashan (where the angel then leaves on an early flight for Damascus).
I
discussed all of this in Volume Two of my thesis,
A Revised History
of the Era of King Hezekiah of Judah
and its Background
(Chapter
2, pp. 38-40), where I had specifically claimed that “Rages”, a city in the
mountains, must be the city of Damascus that dominated the province of
Batanaea” (p. 39). Damascus, almost 700 m above sea level, is actually situated
on a plateau. Secondly, I gave there very specific geographical details in
order to identify this “Rages” in relation to “Ecbatana” (Tobit 5:6), which I
had in turn identified (following the Heb. Londinii, or HL, fragment version of
Tobit) with “Bathania”, or Bashan (possibly Herodotus’ Syrian Ecbatana as
opposed to the better known Median Ecbatana). According to Tobit, “Rages is
situated in the mountains, two days’ walk from Ecbatana which is in the plain”.
Now
Damascus is precisely two days’ walk from Bashan in the Hauran plain, as
according to Jâkût el-Hamawi who says of Batanaea’s most central town of Nawâ
…: “Between Nawa and Damascus is two days’ journey” (as quoted on p. 39). What
further consolidates the fact that Tobit’s ‘Ecbatana’ was in a westerly
direction, rather than an easterly one, is that his son Tobias, leaving
Nineveh, arrived at the Tigris river in the evening; an impossibility were he
heading for Median Ecbatana in the east. And, according to the Vulgate version
of Tobit, Charan, that is, Haran, is situated “in the halfway” between Nineveh
and Ecbatana. The traveller is clearly journeying towards the west. Whilst Bible scholars today tend to dismiss the
whole geography of the Book of Tobit as nonsensical, a simple adjustment based
on a genuine version (Heb. Londinii), makes perfect – even very precise (“two
days walk”) – sense of it.
The
testimony of Jâkût el-Hamawi here was an absolute clincher for me, not only
when trying to make sense of the geography of the Book of Tobit, but also for
having Tobias, with the angel, heading to the very region in Naphtali from
where Tobit himself had hailed (Naphtalian Bashan), but also – from the point
of view of having the geography of Tobit converge with that of Job (my Tobias)
– with the pair of travellers heading to the very geographical region, Bashan,
where ancient legends of Job place his home of Uz and his final resting place. Thus:
Syro-Arabic
Traditions
Again,
this Damascene region is the very one in which the Syro-Arabic traditions place
the home of Job.
The
Jâkût el-Hamawi and Moslem tradition generally mention the east Hauran fertile
tract of country north-west of Têmâ and Bûzân, el-Bethenîje (i.e. Batanaea), as
the district in which Job dwelt. According to Abufelda: “The whole of
Bethenije, a part of the province of Damascus, belonged to Job as his
possession”.
The
Syrian tradition also locates Job’s abode in Batanaea, where lies an ancient
“Monastery of Job” (Dair Êjûb), built in honour of the holy man.
All
the larger works on Palestine and Syria agree that “Uz” is not to be sought in
Edom proper. In these works we also find it recorded that Batanaea is there
called Job’s fatherland. In Batanaea itself the traveller hears this
constantly. If any one speaks of the fruitfulness of the whole district; or of
the fields around a village, he is always answered: ‘Is it not the land of Job
(bilâd Êjûb)?’; ‘Does it not belong to the villages of Job (diâ Êjûb)?’.
It
seems that Batanaea (Hauran) and the land of Job are synonymous.
Job’s Tomb and
other Relics
Regarding
Job’s tomb, we read from Ibn er-Râbi that: “To the prophets buried in the
region of Damascus belongs also Job, and his tomb is near Nawa, in the district
of Hauran”.
Delitzsch
notes, in favour of Batanaea, that the “heap of ashes” (Job 2:8) upon which Job
sat in his misery is variously translated as “dunghill”, and that only in a
Batanaean context is there no contradiction, since the two were “synonymous
notions”. There the dung, being useless for agricultural purposes, is burnt
from time to time in an appointed place before the town; while in any other
part of Syria it is as valuable as among any farmer. This distinctive fact, he
concludes, is yet another indication that Job’s “land of Uz” cannot refer to
the land of Edom.
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