Thursday, October 23, 2014

Similarities to The Odyssey of the Books of Job and Tobit



by

Damien F. Mackey

 
 

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The resemblance of Tobit to the Odyssey in particular was not lost on

that great student of literature [Saint] Jerome ….

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This combined biblical influence upon Homer is, I think, more intelligible in light of my article:

 

Job's Life and Times
 


 

in which I have identified Job with Tobit’s son, Tobias.
 

Some Compelling Comparisons

 

I need to point out right at the start that it sometimes happens that incidents attributed to the son, in the Book of Tobit, in Job, might, in The Odyssey, be attributed to the son's father, or vice versa (or even be attributed to some less important character).

The same sort of mix occurs with the female characters.

 

 

These are some of the parallels that I have picked up:

 


The two chief male characters

 

Tobit and his son, Tobias/Job, equate approximately to Odysseus and his son, Telemachus.

 

Unlike the pious Tobit, though, Odysseus was a crafty and battle-hardened pagan, with a love of strong drink and an eye for women {goddesses}. But he nevertheless pined for his true wife, Penelope.

 

The Suitors

 

These unpleasant and self-serving characters are especially prominent and numerous in Homer’s The Odyssey.

In the Book of Tobit, “seven” suitors in turn meet an unhappy fate in their desire for Sarah.

 

The Sought-After Woman

 

In The Odyssey, she is Penelope.

She is Sarah in the Book of Tobit.

 

The 'Divine' Messenger

 

From whom the son, especially, receives help during his travels.

 

In the Book of Tobit, this messenger is the angel Raphael (in the guise of ‘Azarias’).

In The Odyssey, it is the goddess Athene (in the guise of ‘Mentes’).

 

Satan, or Adversary (Book of Job)

 

He is Poseidon in The Odyssey, the god who hounds down the story’s hero.

He is Asmodeus in the Book of Tobit.

 

According to the following, this Asmodeus is to be identified with the Iranian, Aeshma Daeva (http://www.touchstonemag.com/archives/article.php?id=12-02-036-f):

 

Bearing just as obvious a connection with non-biblical literature, I believe, is the demon Asmodeus (Tobit 3:8), who is doubtless to be identified, on purely morphological grounds, with Aeshma Daeva, a figure well known in ancient Iranian religion ….

 

The Friends

 

Whereas, in the Book of Tobit, the young man’s journeying takes him amongst kindred folks (e.g. Raguel and Gabael),

in The Odyssey, it is to the homelands of certain Greek returnées from Troy (e.g. Nestor and Menelaus) that young Telemachus travels.

 

The Dog

 

Yes, even a dog, or dogs, figure in both stories.

P. Reardon, commenting upon this particular parallel in The Wide World of Tobit, follows the typical pattern of thought according to which the pagan mythology has precedence over the Hebrew version:

 

The Larger World

 

….

The resemblance of Tobit to the Odyssey in particular was not lost on that great student of literature, Jerome, as is evident in a single detail of his Latin translation of Tobit in the Vulgate. Intrigued by the literary merit of Tobit, but rejecting its canonicity, the jocose and sometimes prankish Jerome felt free to insert into his version an item straight out of the Odyssey—namely, the wagging of the dog’s tail on arriving home with Tobias in 11:9—Tunc praecucurrit canis, qui simul fuerat in via, et quasi nuntius adveniens blandimento suae caudae gaudebat—“Then the dog, which had been with them in the way, ran before, and coming as if it had brought the news, showed his joy by his fawning and wagging his tail.”16 No other ancient version of Tobit mentions either the tail or the wagging, but Jerome, ever the classicist, was confident his readers would remember the faithful but feeble old hound Argus, as the final act of his life, greeting the return of Odysseus to the home of his father: “he endeavored to wag his tail” (Odyssey 17.302). And to think that we owe this delightful gem to Jerome’s rejection of Tobit’s canonicity!

[End of quote]

 

 

There is space here for only a few more of the many further parallels that I have observed between Tobit/Job and The Odyssey:

 

 

Further Comparisons

 

Only Son

 

Tobias was the only son of Tobit and Anna (cf. Tobit 1:9 and 8:17).

So was Telemachus the only son of Odysseus and Penelope: '[Telemachus] ... you an only son, the apple of your mother's eye...' (II, 47).

Likewise Anna referred to her son, Tobias, as 'the light of my eyes' (Tobit 10:5).

And Telemachus’s uncle will use that identical phrase: 'Telemachus, light of my eyes!' (XVI, 245).

 

Longing for Death

 

The aged Tobit, in his utter misery of blindness, longed for death, and thus he prayed to God: 'Command that I now be released from my distress to go to the eternal abode; do not turn Thy face away from me' (Tobit 3:6).

This theme is treated even more starkly, and in more prolonged fashion, in the Book of Job (esp. Ch. 3).

In The Odyssey, it is said of Laërtes that "every day he prays to Zeus that death may visit his house and release the spirit from his flesh" (XV, 239).

And Odysseus, after having learned from Circe about the wretched existence of the dead in Hades, said: 'This news broke my heart. I sat down on the bed and wept. I had no further use for life, no wish to see the sunshine any more' (X, 168).

 

The Suitors

 

"On the same day" that Tobit had prayed to be released from this life, Sarah - back home in Midian "was reproached by her father's maids, because she had been given to seven husbands, and the evil demon Asmodeus had slain each of them before he had been with her as his wife" (Tobit 3:7, 8). In the Vulgate version of Tobit, we are informed that these seven suitors had lustful intentions towards Sarah (6:17).

The Odyssey also tells about Penelope, who is tormented by the suitors who have invaded Odysseus’s home and are squandering the family's wealth. Penelope has to resort to the ruse of weaving a winding-cloth - ostensibly intending to make the decision to marry once she has completed it. But each night she undoes the cloth, in order to keep the suitors at bay (I, 28-33; II, 38-39).

 

The prediction early in the story, that "there'd be a quick death and a sorry wedding for ... all [the suitors]", once Odysseus returned home (I, 32), was to be fulfilled to the letter when he dealt them all a bloody end.

And indeed these words, a "sorry wedding" and a "quick death", might well have been spoken of Sarah's suitors as well, once the demon Asmodeus had finished with them. This Asmodeus is eventually overcome by Tobias, with great assistance from the angel. Asmodeus then "fled to the remotest parts of Egypt, and the angel bound him" (cf. Tobit 7:16 and 7:8:3). Even this episode might have its 'echo' at the beginning of The Odyssey, when the violent god, Poseidon (legendary father of the Athenian hero Theseus - born of two fathers: Poseidon and Aegeus, king of Athens), is found amongst "the distant Ethiopians, the farthest outposts of mankind ..." (I, 25). Ethiopia could indeed be described as "the remotest parts of Egypt".

 

Heavenly Visitor

 

... she [Athene] bound under her feet her lovely sandals of untarnished gold, which carried her with the speed of the wind.... Thus she flashed down from the heights of Olympus. On reaching Ithaca she took her stand on the threshold of the court in front of Odysseus' house; and to look like a visitor she assumed the appearance of a Taphian chieftain named Mentes… (I, 27-28).

The reader will quickly pick up the similarities between this text and the relevant part of the Book of Tobit if I simply quote directly from the latter:

The prayer of [Tobit and Sarah] was heard in the presence of the glory of the great God. And Raphael was sent (3:16,17). Then Tobias ... found a beautiful young man, standing girded, as it were ready to walk. And not knowing that he was an angel of God, he saluted him.... 'I am Azarias, the son of the great Ananias' (5:5, 6, 18).

 

The Questioning

 

Tobit had interrogated the angel about the latter's identity, asking: 'My brother, to what tribe and family do you belong? Tell me ...', etc., etc. (5:9-12). Raguel exhibited a similar sort of curiosity: 'Where are you from brethren? .... Do you know our brother Tobit? .... Is he in good health?' (7:3, 4).

In The Odyssey, too, this pattern (but with a Greek slant - e.g. the mention of ships) is again most frequent - almost monotonous. Telemachus, for instance, asks Athene: 'However, do tell me who you are and where you come from. What is your native town? Who are your people? And since you certainly cannot have come on foot, what kind of vessel brought you here?' (I, 29).

(For further examples of this pattern of interrogation in The Odyssey, see pp. 72; 118; 164; 175; 208; 220).

 

Athene replied to Telemachus, using a phrase that I suggest may have come straight out of the Book of Tobit - where towards the end of the story Raphael says: 'I will not conceal anything from you' (12:11). Thus:

'I will tell you everything', answered the bright-eyed goddess Athene. 'My father was the wise prince, Anchialus. My own name is Mentes, and I am a chieftain of the sea-faring Taphians'.

 

Delaying One’s Guests

 

Another noticeable tendency in these Israelite writings, as well as in The Odyssey, is for hosts to insist on their guests staying longer than the latter had intended, or had wished. This was perhaps the customary hospitality in ancient Syro-Mesopotamia, because it is common also in Genesis (24:25-26; 29:21-31:41). And it happens in The Book of Tobit, and indeed all the way through The Odyssey as well. For example, Telemachus says to Athene (I, 29): 'Sir, .... I know you are anxious to be on your way, but I beg you to stay a little longer, so that you can bathe and refresh yourself. Then you can go, taking with you as a keepsake from myself something precious and beautiful, the sort of present that one gives to a guest who has become a friend'.

'No', said the bright-eyed goddess. 'I am eager to be on my way; please do not detain me now. As for the gift you kindly suggest, let me take it home with me on my way back. Make it the best you can find, and you won't lose by the exchange'. (Cf. IV, 80; XV, 231-232).

In like manner, Tobias was impatient to leave the sanguine Raguel and return home:

At that time Tobias said to Raguel. 'Send me back, for my father and mother have given up hope of ever seeing me again'.

But his father-in-law said to him, 'Stay with me, and I will send messengers to your father, and they will inform him how things are with you'.

'No, send me back to my father'. So Raguel arose and gave him his wife Sarah and half of his property in slaves, cattle, and money. (10:7, 8-10).

 

The Dog(s)

 

(a) The Leaving

"... Telemachus himself set out for the meeting-place, bronze spear in hand, escorted ... by two dogs that trotted beside him" (II, 37).

Also "[Tobias and the angel] both went out and departed, and the young man's dog was with them" (Tobit 5:16).

 

(b) The Returning

When Telemachus returned home: "The dogs, usually so obstreperous, not only did not bark at the newcomer but greeted him with wagging tails"(XVI, 245).

The dog in the Book of Tobit was equally excited: "Then the dog, which had been with [Tobias and the angel] along the way, ran ahead of them; and coming as if he had brought the news showed his joy by his fawning and wagging his tail" (Tobit 11:9).

 

Similarities to Other Pagan Drama

 


 

…. some readers have found in Tobit similarities to still other pagan themes, such as the legend of Admetus. ….

More convincing, I believe, however, are points of contact with classical Greek theater. Martin Luther observed similarities between Tobit and Greek comedy … but one is even more impressed by resemblances that the Book of Tobit bears to a work of Greek tragedy—the Antigone of Sophocles. In both stories the moral stature of the heroes is chiefly exemplified in their bravely burying the dead in the face of official prohibition and at the risk of official punishment. In both cases a venerable moral tradition is maintained against a political tyranny destructive of piety. That same Greek drama, moreover, provides a further parallel to the blindness of Tobit in the character of blind Teiresias, himself also a man of an inner moral vision important to the theme of the play. ….

 

The widespread panorama of the Book of Tobit has inclined Reardon - who likens it in this regard to the Book of Job - to view the whole thing as a “universal essay”, including similarities with the Book of Jonah:

 

The Apocrypha’s Tobit and Literary Tradition

 

I like to think of the Book of Tobit as a kind of universal essay, in the sense that its author makes considerable effort to place his brief, rather simple narrative within a literary, historical, and moral universe of surprising breadth and diversity, extending through the Fertile Crescent and out both sides. To find comparable dimensions of such large cultural exposure among biblical authors, one would have to go to Ezekiel, Luke, or the narrator of Job.

….

Tobit’s explicit reference to Jonah is of considerable interest in the light of certain affinities between the two books. First and second, both stories take place about the same time [sic] and both in Mesopotamia. Third, both accounts involve a journey. Fourth, the distressed Tobit, like Jonah, prays to die. Fifth and most strikingly, his son Tobias encounters a fish that attempts—with less success than Jonah’s fish—to swallow him! Finally, in each book the fish serves as a special instrument of Divine Providence.

Besides Jonah, Tobit shows several remarkable affinities to the Book of Job, some of which were noted rather early in Christian exegesis. For example, the title characters of both works shared a zeal for purity of life, almsgiving, and other deeds of charity (Job 1 and 31; Tobit 1–2), patient endurance of trials sent by God … a deep weariness of life itself (Job 7:15; Tobit 3:6), a final vindication by the Lord at the end of each book, and perhaps even a common hope of the resurrection. …. As early as Cyprian in the third century, it was also noted that both men were similarly mocked by wives unable to appreciate their virtue and faith in God…..

 

Reardon then expands upon this apparent universalism of the Book of Tobit:

 

The Larger World

 

Even when the Book of Tobit most closely touches the other biblical literature, however, it sometimes does so along lines reminiscent of, and running parallel to, more extensive traditions outside the Bible.

An obvious and rather large example is the “Golden Rule” in Tobit 4:15, “Do not do to anyone what you yourself hate.” Not only does this prohibition substantially contain the biblical command to love one’s neighbor as oneself … not only, furthermore, does it stand in canonical continuity with the more positive formulation of the same Golden Rule preserved in the Gospels … it is also the equivalent to an ideal found in other ethical philosophies. These latter include Greek authors like Herodotus and Isocrates … and even classical Confucianism. …. This use of the Golden Rule thus assured Tobit a featured place in the entire history of religion and moral philosophy…..

A similar assessment is true, I believe, concerning the way that Tobit develops the religious symbolism of the journey. Obviously that motif had long been part of the Bible, particularly in those sections associated with the Exodus wandering and the return from Babylon … but it was a topic not limited to the Bible. Back near the beginning of the second millennium B.C., the Mesopotamian Gilgamesh Epic had inchoatively explored the religious symbolism of the journey, and that exploration would continue down through some of our greatest literature: the Odyssey, of course, diverse accounts of Jason and the Argonauts, the Aeneid, etc., and eventually the Divine Comedy, itself inspired by all of them. In a more secular form the journey imagery continued with such works as the Endymion of Keats … even after it had been assumed within the ascetical literature of the Church as xeneteia, conceived as both exile and pilgrimage. A classical example of the latter use is found in Step 3 of The Ladder of Divine Ascent by St. John of Mount Sinai.

 

Thursday, October 9, 2014

King Hezekiah, Samaria, Assyria, and Edwin Thiele



by

 Damien F. Mackey

 

 

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“…. despite the undoubted merits of Thiele’s own chronological scheme, his treatment

of the chronology of king Hezekiah, specifically, is perhaps the least satisfactory part of

his entire work”.

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The Fall of Samaria

 

This famous event has traditionally been dated to c. 722/21 BC [E. Thiele dates it to 723/722 BC. The Mysterious Numbers of the Hebrew Kings, p. 162.] and, according to the statement in 2 Kings, it occurred “in the sixth year of Hezekiah, which was the ninth year of King Hoshea of Israel” (18:10). While all this seems straightforward enough, more recent versions of biblical chronology, basing themselves on the research of the highly regarded Professor Thiele [ch. 9: “The Chronology of the Kings of Judah (715-561 BC)”], have made impossible the retention of such a promising syncretism between king Hoshea and king Hezekiah by dating the beginning of the latter’s reign to 716/715 BC, about six years after the fall of Samaria. Moreover, there is disagreement over whether Samaria fell once or twice (in quick succession) to the Assyrians (e.g. to Shalmaneser V in 722 BC, and then again to Sargon II in 720 BC); with Assyriologist Tadmor, whom Thiele has followed, claiming a ‘reconquest’ of Samaria by Sargon II [H. Tadmor, ‘The Campaigns of Sargon II of Assur’, p. 94. Tadmor here refers to Sargon’s “reconquest of Samaria”. For Thiele’s discussion of what he calls Tadmor’s “masterly analysis”, see Thiele, op. cit, e.g. pp. 167-168].

 

Let us briefly touch upon these objections here.

 

Firstly, regarding the Hezekian chronology in its relationship to the fall of Samaria, one of the reasons for Thiele’s having arrived at, and settled upon, 716/715 BC as the date for the commencement of reign of the Judaean king was due to the following undeniable problem that arises from a biblical chronology that takes as its point of reference the conventional neo-Assyrian chronology. I set out the ‘problem’ here in standard terms.

 

If Samaria fell in the 6th year of Hezekiah, as the Old Testament tells it, then Hezekiah’s reign must have begun about 728/727 B.C. If so, his 14th year, the year in which Sennacherib threatened Jerusalem, must have been about 714 B.C. But this last is, according to the conventional scheme, about ten years before Sennacherib became king and about thirteen years before his campaign against Jerusalem which is currently dated to 701 B.C. On the other hand, if Hezekiah’s reign began fourteen years before Sennacherib’s campaign, that is in 715 B.C, it began about twelve to thirteen years too late for Hezekiah to have been king for six years before the fall of Samaria. In short, the problem as seen by chronologists is whether the starting point of Hezekiah’s reign should be dated in relationship to the fall of Samaria in 722 B.C, or to the campaign of Sennacherib in 701 B.C.

 

A second reason for Thiele’s divergence from the traditional dating for Hezekiah is that Thiele, following others such as O. Zöckler [op. cit., p. 169], had found no evidence whatsoever for any contact between king Hezekiah and king Hoshea. Not even when Hezekiah had, in his first year, sent his invitations throughout Hoshea’s territory for the great Passover in Jerusalem (2 Chronicles 30). Thus Thiele could not accept that these two kings had reigned concurrently.

In regard to the first point, the true date of commencement of the reign of king Hezekiah, I should simply like to make the general comment here that this is in fact an artificial ‘problem’. The situation has arisen, as we shall find, from Thiele’s heavy reliance upon the conventional neo-Assyrian chronology, which has been significantly over-stretched, thereby doubling the activities of the one Assyrian king: Sargon II/Sennacherib. See my:

 

Assyrian King Sargon II, Otherwise Known As Sennacherib

 


 

Failure to recognize this - and a too confident reliance upon the conventional scheme in general - has caused Thiele, and those who have followed him, to turn the reign of Hezekiah of Judah into one of the most vexed problems of Old Testament chronology. And, despite the undoubted merits of Thiele’s own chronological scheme, his treatment of the chronology of king Hezekiah, specifically, is perhaps the least satisfactory part of his entire work.

With Sennacherib found to have been at work in connection with both the fall of Samaria and, of course, the campaign in Hezekiah’s 14th year, then it becomes necessary to date the Judaean king’s reign in relationship to both, and not merely to one, of these significant Assyrian campaigns.

Thiele’s other point, about the lack of evidence for contemporaneity of reigns between Hoshea and Hezekiah, is indeed a legitimate one, as is also Tadmor’s argument – in connection with the neo-Assyrian evidence - in favour of two actual conquests of Samaria by the Assyrians.

 

A Solid Foundation Needed for the Era of King Hezekiah of Judah

 

Thiele has, in his widely accepted, neo-Assyrian-based so-called biblical’ chronology, completely rejected - and hence lost - that triple biblical link of the 9th year of Hoshea, the 6th year of Hezekiah and the fall of Samaria.

 

Despite this current mood in academic thinking, let us not forget that the testimony of Israel has sometimes been our only source of knowledge about a particular king, nation or event, prior to the flowering of archaeology in modern times. Thus, for twenty centuries or more, the only mention of the great Assyrian king, SARGON II, was to be found in the opening verse of Isaiah 20: “In the year that the commander-in-chief, who was sent by King Sargon of Assyria, came to Ashdod and fought against it and took it”. Historians doubted Isaiah’s testimony that there even was such an Assyrian king, ‘Sargon’. Again, relevant to the Era of king Hezekiah, there is some interlocking chronology between the Assyrian records and 2 Kings for the incident of the fall of Samaria. These syncretisms, I suggest, should not be lightly dismissed. Potentially, they are fully preserved in my five chronological ‘anchors’ for EOH as listed in my thesis:

 

A Revised History of the Era of King Hezekiah of Judah

and its Background

 


 

(Chapter 1, p. 28); but they are annihilated in Thiele’s chronology, despite the latter’s assertion that [ibid., p. 174]:

 

… never will the events of the Old Testament record be properly fitted into the events of the Near Eastern world, and never will the vital messages of the Old Testament be thoroughly or correctly understood until there has been established a sound chronology for Old Testament times.

 

Montgomery tells of the devastating effect that Thiele’s chronology has had upon the traditional dating of Hezekiah in its relation to Hoshea of Israel and the fall of Samaria [‘Towards a Biblically Inerrant Chronology’, section: “The Divided Kingdom”]:

 

Thiele’s chronology has the fall of Samaria in 722 BC, Hezekiah’s accession year in 715 BC and his 14th year in 701 BC – 21 years apart. He insists that Hezekiah and Hosea [Hoshea] had no contact at all. He says “… it is of paramount importance that synchronisms (II Kings 18:1, 8, 10) between him (Hezekiah) and Hosea be recognized as late and artificial.” [12, p174], i.e. they are false.

 

This is an extremely bold conclusion for Thiele to have reached in regard to an ancient document that provides us with multi-chronological links; especially given his insistence

upon “a sound chronology for Old Testament times”. Admittedly though, as already noted, there are problems to be sorted out in connection with the biblical link between Hoshea and Hezekiah, the beginning of whose reign is said to have occurred during Hoshea’s third year (2 Kings 18:1): “In the third year of King Hoshea son of Elah of Israel, Hezekiah son of King Ahaz of Judah began to reign”. Thiele has discussed this in several places, and has rejected the veracity of the biblical evidence. His argument firstly centres upon the fact that Hezekiah had, in the great Passover he proclaimed in his first year, sent invitations to Israel – to Ephraim and Manasseh and even Zebulun (2 Chronicles 30:1, 6, 10), leading Thiele to conclude [Op. cit, ch’s 8 and 9]: “While the northern kingdom was still in existence, it would not, of course, have been possible for the envoys of Judah to pass through the territory of Israel; so we have here a clear indication that it was no longer in existence”.

On a more general note, Thiele has offered this related objection [Ibid, p. 169]:

 

Nowhere in the record of Hezekiah’s reign is mention made of any contact by him with Hoshea. In less serious times there was always a mention in the account of a king of Judah of some contact with the corresponding king of Israel, but none is found here. If it had been during the days of the God-fearing Hezekiah that Assyria was bringing Israel to its end, it is almost certain that Hezekiah would have had some contact with Hoshea and mentioned that contact. The deafening silence in this regard is a clear indication that Hoshea and his kingdom were no more when Hezekiah began.

 

This is a legitimate point. The most likely solution to the problem, in my opinion, is that Hoshea was no longer in charge of Israel.

I suggested in Chapter 1 (p. 26) that Hoshea’s revolt against Assyria, involving his turning to ‘So King of Egypt’, would have occurred close to 727 BC, the beginning of Hezekiah’s reign. Some years earlier, with the Assyrian forces of Tiglath-pileser III “approaching the very border of Israel and … threatening to push onward to Samaria”, according to Irvine’s construction of events, Hoshea had led “a pro-Assyrian, anti-Pekah movement within Israel …” [Isaiah, Ahaz, and the Syro-Ephraimitic Crisis, p. 34] But now, in the face of Hoshea’s revolt, the swift-acting Shalmaneser V (who I am identifying with Tiglath-pileser), had promptly “confined [Hoshea] and imprisoned him” (2 Kings 17:4). Hoshea was thus rendered inactive from about the beginning of Hezekiah’s reign and on into the siege and subsequent capture of Samaria. And so the Egyptian-backed Hezekiah, who had like Hoshea rebelled against Assyria, became for a time the sole ruler of the entire land, prior to the Assyrian incursions into Judah. In this way, one presumes, Hezekiah would have been able to have sent his messengers into northern Israel.

The other legitimate objection that I had noted in Chapter 1 (on p. 22) concerned Tadmor’s view, followed by Thiele, that Samaria was captured twice by Assyria; a second time in 720 BC. [op. cit., p. 94. Tadmor here refers to Sargon’s “reconquest of Samaria”]. Moreover, Roux considers whether it were Shalmaneser V or Sargon II who captured Samaria as “still a debated question” [Ancient Iraq, p. 310]. While van de Mieroop writes of Shalmaneser V as conquering Israel’s capital “just before his death” [A History of the Ancient Near East, p. 235],  adding that: “His successor Sargon II claimed the victory for himself and turned the region into the province of Samaria”.

Whilst I have discussed in detail in Chapter 6 of my thesis the neo-Assyrian chronology in its relation to Hezekiah, I should like to make some comments here, following Boutflower. Sargon, according to D. Luckenbill, had claimed that the fall of Samaria occurred (i.e. he caused it) in his first year [Ancient Records of Assyria & Babylonia, vol. 1, # 4. At least, the fall of Samaria is generally regarded as being the incident to which Sargon referred here]. “[At the beginning of my rule, in my first year of reign ... Samerinai (the people of Samaria) ... 27,290 people, who lived therein, I carried away ...]”. I see no good reason though not to accept Sargon’s plain statement here. There is apparently a one year discrepancy between Sargon II’s Annals and the document that Winckler called Cylinder B, according to which the fall of Samaria could not have occurred in the reign of Sargon, but of his predecessor, Shalmaneser. Here is Boutflower’s explanation of the apparent puzzling discrepancy [The Book of Isaiah, pp. 112-113]:

 

… the Annals make Sargon’s reign to commence in the year 722 BC., styled the rish sharruti or “beginning of the reign”, 721 being regarded as the first year of the reign; whereas our cylinder, which after Winckler we will call Cylinder B, regards 721 as the “beginning of the reign”, and 720 as the first year of the reign.

 

From this conclusion we obtain the following remarkable result. The capture of Samaria is assigned by the Annals to the “beginning of the reign” of Sargon, i.e. to the last three months of the year 722, and it is recorded as the first event of the reign. But according to this new reckoning of time on Cylinder B that event would not be included in the reign of Sargon at all, but would be looked upon as falling in the reign of his predecessor Shalmaneser V.

When, then, it is objected that in 2 Kings xvii. 3-6 the capture of Samaria - which took place in 722 - appears to be assigned to Shalmaneser … we can answer that the sacred writer is no more at fault than the scribe who wrote Cylinder B ….

 

It does appear from Sargon II’s Annals that Samaria revolted again even after it had been captured by the Assyrians. This action, tied up I believe with Hezekiah’s own revolt - part of an Egyptian-backed Syro-Palestine rebellion against Sargon II - was followed by further such revolts, possibly also involving Samaria. It does not alter the fact that Samaria, the capital of the northern kingdom, had fallen to Shalmaneser V and Sargon II in the ninth year of Hoshea, which was the sixth year of Hezekiah. When the plain testimony of Sargon II above, in relation to the capture of Samaria, is synthesized with that of 2 Kings 18:10, we gain this four-way cross-reference for c. 722 BC: (a) fall of Samaria; (b) beginning of Sargon’s rule; (c) sixth year of Hezekiah; (d) ninth year of Hoshea.

We can even add to this list (e) year one of Merodach-baladan as king of Babylon, according to Sargon’s testimony: “In my twelfth year of reign, (Merodach-baladan) .... For 12 years, against the will (heart) of the gods, he held sway over Babylon ...”.

Thus, in regard to the one historical incident of the fall of Samaria (c. 722 BC), one can bring into solid alignment three of the four major nations with which this thesis is primarily concerned (Judah/Israel; Assyria and Babylonia). Unfortunately, as already noted, historians and biblical chronologists, notably Thiele, have basically ignored the above four-way synchronism, preferring to align Hezekiah’s regnal years to a miscalculated neo-Assyrian history, making Hezekiah a late contemporary of Sargon II’s, and dating the former to c. 716/5-687 BC. This means, as we also saw, that Hezekiah would have begun to reign about a decade later than where 2 Kings locates him; far too late for his having been the king of Judah during the fall of Samaria.