by
Damien F. Mackey
‘I Ashurbanipal, within the palace, learned the wisdom
of Nebo, the entire art of writing on clay tablets of every kind. I made myself
master of the various kinds of writing ... I read the beautiful clay tablets
from Sumer and the Akkadian writing, which is hard to master. I had the joy of
reading inscriptions on stone from the time before the flood.’
The land of
Mesopotamia (from the Greek, meaning “between two rivers”), situated as it was between the
Tigris and Euphrates - two of the rivers of the ancient Paradise:
The Location of Paradise (Genesis 2:10-2:14). Part One.
was no stranger to
local flooding. So when king Ashurbanipal of Assyria (C7th BC) boasted of his
having read stone inscriptions “from the time before the flood” (quote taken
from: http://creation.com/who-said-it-answer-ashurbanipal), one might presume that the king meant, not just any
local flood, but the Flood of which
so many nations of the world have recollection.
On this last, see
my:
Noachic Flood in Egyptian Legend
Some degree of
Israelite influence - whilst the nation was held in Assyrian captivity - must
have brushed off on the Assyrian kings and their nation, just as with the
Chaldean rulers and their people of a later era under Jewish influence (notably
king Nebuchednezzar II). Not that the neo-Assyrian kings would necessarily need
Israelite prompting to know about something as major as the great Genesis
Flood. Biblical historians are struck by the extent to which, for instance, the
Vassal (or Succession) Treaty of Ashurbanipal’s father, Esarhaddon, resembles
Deuteronomy 13 and 28 – but with the inevitable conclusion that the Genesis
text took its influence from the pagan one.
Carly L. Crouch,
for instance, has provided this “Introduction” to her article:
Israel and the Assyrians: Deuteronomy, the Succession Treaty of Esarhaddon,
and the Nature of Subversion.
The origins and purpose of the book of Deuteronomy remain, despite significant
progress in the two centuries since de Wette, two of the most contested points
in biblical scholarship. A prominent feature of attempts to ground the
deuteronomic text in a historical context over the last half century has been
the observation of certain affinities between Deuteronomy and ancient Near
Eastern vassal treaties and loyalty oaths. More specifically, it has been
suggested that the book of Deuteronomy, in some more or less original form,
constituted a subversive appropriation of Neo-Assyrian imperial ideology in
favor of a Yahwistic theocentricity: a text deliberately designed to undermine
the authority of the Assyrian king by planting YHWH in his stead. The
prevalence of this assertion has its roots in the widespread recognition of
similarities between elements of Deuteronomy, especially chapters 13 and
28, and Assyrian vassal treaties and loyalty oaths, with a particular focus on
the Succession Treaty of Esarhaddon, commonly referred to as VTE.1 The idea
that there are extensive allusions to VTE in Deuteronomy has become a
persistent element in discussions regarding the origins and purpose of the
book. ….
[End of quote]
My own suggestion
for such similarities would be that king Esarhaddon, no doubt coming under at
least some degree of influence of his renowned Vizier, Ahikar - nephew of Tobit
and cousin of Tobias - may thus have imbibed, to some extent, the laws and
teachings of Moses. Tobit, for his part, had been a tireless missionary amongst
the captive Israelites, according to Tobit 1:13-15 (Douay version):
And
because [Tobit] was mindful of the Lord with all his heart, God gave him favour
in the sight of Salmanasar [Shalmaneser] the king. And he gave him leave to go
whithersoever he would, with liberty to do whatever he had a mind. He therefore went to all that were in
captivity, and gave them wholesome admonitions.
Now, Jewish
tradition (Tractate Sanhedrin) tells
of king Sennacherib, the father of Esarhaddon, having visited the mountain
where the Ark was thought to have landed, where the king gathered a piece of
wood from the sacred vessel.
The following post tells of it: http://www.lifeandland.org/2013/10/did-sennacherib-king-of-assyria-worship-wood-from-noah%E2%80%99s-ark-as-a-deity/
….
Gordon
Franz
Introduction
In
Tractate Sanhedrin, Rabbi Papa (ca. AD 300-375) recounts a story about
Sennacherib, king of Assyria, finding a piece of wood from Noah’s Ark. It
states: “He [Sennacherib] then went away and found a plank of Noah’s ark.
‘This’, said he, ‘must be the great God who saved Noah from the flood. If I go
[to battle] and am successful, I will sacrifice my two sons to thee’, he vowed.
But his sons heard this, so they killed him, as it is written, And it came to
pass, as he was worshipping in the house of Nisroch his god, that Adram-melech
and Sharezer his sons smote him with the sword.” This story is recounted in
Louis Ginzberg’s classic work, Legends of the Jews, and implies that this is a
legendary account. One reason it might have been considered a legend is because
Sennacherib was never on, or near, the modern-day Mount Ararat (Agri Dagh). Yet
there are plausible historical reasons to believe this story is true and not
legendary.
There are
three lines of arguments that suggest the historical plausibility of this
event. First, at one point in his life, Sennacherib was on the mountain in the
Land of Ararat where tradition and ancient history say Noah’s Ark landed.
Second, he learned of the story of Noah’s Ark from some Israelites or Judeans
with whom he had contact. Third, the strongest, the temple of Nisroch was
dedicated to a plank of wood from Noah’s Ark.
Sennacherib Saw Noah’s Ark
Sennacherib
would have seen Noah’s Ark during his fifth campaign carried out about 697 BC.
This campaign was precipitated by the rebellion of seven cities located on Mt.
Nipur, the Assyrian name for Cudi Dagh which were not subject to the Assyrian
yoke.
The flat
area to the south of Mt. Nipur, today called the Cizre Plain, was a “buffer
zone between the Mesopotamian lowlands and the Anatolian highlands”. In
antiquity, the Cizra Plain was called the province of Ulluba. In the year 739
BC, after annexing Ulluba, Tiglath-Pileser III built and fortified a city named
Ashur-ipisha. The surveyors of the Cizre Plain project have tentatively
identified the site located in the center of the plain, Takyan Hoyuk as the
site of Ashur-ipisha.
The
Assyrians used this agriculturally rich province to supply food for Nineveh and
other cities in central Assyria. They would float grain and other foodstuff
down the Tigris River on crafts called kalakku. These crafts consisted “of a
raft supported by inflated animal skins”.
The Assyriologist
Julian Reade, suggested that the original cause of the Mount Nipur expedition
[Sennacherib’s fifth campaign] was to punish the inhabitants for sinking loads
of grain or stone sphinx colossi in transit to Nineveh. Others have suggested
that the mountain villagers were attacking the Assyrian farms on the Cizre
plain.
Sennacherib
successfully campaigned against the seven cities on Mt. Nipur (Tumurra, Sharim,
Khalbuda, Kipsha, Esama, Kua and Kana). To commemorate his victory he placed at
least nine sculptured panels near the top of the mountain. Seven were found
near the village of Shakh. Two were found near the village of Hasanah. It has
been suggested that Tummurra, the chief city of the region, lay under the
village of Shakh because of its close proximity to the bulk of the
inscriptions. The city of Esama should be identified with Hasanah, located at
the foot of Cudi Dagh, because the toponym is preserved in the name of the
village, and there too, the village is in close proximity of the inscriptions.
I would be most grateful if any of the Turkish archaeologists are aware of any
archaeological surveys on Cudi Dagh that could help identify the other five
cities that were destroyed by Sennacherib.
The
inscriptions on the sculptured panels reveal the ego of Sennacherib.
After attributing his victory to the Assyrian gods, he describes himself
as “the great king, the mighty king, king of the universe, king of Assyria, and
the exalted prince!”. He goes on to describes himself as an ibex, leading the
charge up the mountain, through gullies and mountain torrents to the highest
summits. The impression one gets from his inscriptions is that he climbed all
over the mountain in his conquest of the seven cities.
When
Friedrich Bender visited Cudi Dagh in the spring of 1954 he obtained wood
samples from an object that might be Noah’s Ark at a level of about 2,000
meters, just below the summit of Cudi Dagh. This location is also near some of
the inscriptions that were carved by Sennacherib’s artisans.
Sennacherib
would have seen an intact Noah’s Ark. He apparently, according to Jewish
tradition, had “relic fever” and brought some wood back to Nineveh with him
from Cudi Dagh.
Sennacherib Heard about Noah’s Ark from Israelites
or Judeans
How did
Sennacherib know that the object he saw was Noah’s Ark? More than likely he
heard about the Ark from Israelites or Judeans with whom he had come in
contact. There are several possibilities as to their identity. The first
possibility is that his mother told him.
In the
spring of 1989, Iraqi archaeologists excavated a vaulted tomb (Tomb II) in the
North-West Palace at Nimrud, ancient Kalkhu. Inside was a sarcophagus that
contained two skeletal remains as well as 157 objects. The two occupants have
been identified as Yaba, the wife and queen of Tiglath-Pileser III (744-727
BC), and Atalia, the wife and queen of Sargon II (721-705 BC). In a detailed
study of these names as it relates to the foreign policy of Assyria, Stephanie
Dalley suggests that they were Judean princesses married to the kings of
Assyria. She concluded that “Atalya was almost certainly the mother of
Sennacherib.”
This is a
tantalizing possibility, but is it the case? K. Lawson Younger, in an article
discussing the Yahwistic theophoric element in names written in the
Neo-Assyrian language, Akkadian, says it is far from certain that the name of
Sargon’s queen, Atalia, contains the Yahwistic theophoric element and it is
probably best to refrain from too much speculation on the queen’s ethnicity.
Ran Zadok concurs with Younger. With these cautions in mind, we probably should
look elsewhere for Sennacherib’s contact with Israelites or Judeans.
The
second possibility would be an Israelite or Judean soldier in the Assyrian army
during Sennacherib’s Fifth Campaign. It is known that the Assyrians
incorporated the armies of their defeated foes into their army.
A third
possibility how Sennacherib could have come in contact with Israelites or
Judeans were those Judeans working on Sennacherib’s “Palace without Rival” in
Nineveh. David Ussishkin, the excavator of Lachish, did a detailed study of the
Lachish relief in the British Museum. He concluded from the dress that some of
the laborers working on Sennacherib’s palace were Judeans, and “quit possibly
the men of Lachish.”
John
Russell, in his monumental study on Sennacherib’s Palace, points out that Rooms
29, 30, and 33 of the palace were embellished with a special stone panel from
Mount Nipur (Cudi Dagh) of polished stones. On the back of one winged lion from
Room 33, door p, was an inscription that stated: “Palace of Sennacherib, great
king, powerful king, king of the world, king of Assyria: [grain stone], whose
appearance is like mottled barley (?), which in the time of the kings, my
fathers, was valued only as a necklace stone, revealed itself to me at the foot
of Mt. Nipur. I had female sphinxes made of it and had them dragged into
Nineveh.” In a study conducted at the British Museum on the slabs that
originated at Mt. Nipur, it was determined that the stone was fossiliferous
limestone, also known as biopelsparite, and contained microfossils and shell
fragments that fit the description of “cucumber seeds” or “finely grained
barley.”
The
Israelites or Judeans that Sennacherib came in contact would have told him some
of the great stories from the Torah. One of the most dramatic being the account
of Noah’s Flood and God providing salvation for Noah and his family by placing
them in an Ark built by the great patriarch.
The Deity of the Temple of Nisroch Was a Plank from
Noah’s Ark
The Bible
recounts the death of Sennacherib, king of Assyria, in this way: “Now it came
to pass, as he [Sennacherib] was worshiping in the house (temple) of Nisroch
his god, that his sons Adrammeleh and Sharezer struck him down with the sword;
and they escaped into the Land of Ararat.” Archaeologists, Assyriologist, and
Bible commentators have been puzzled over the identification of the
Sennacherib’s god, or personal divine patron, Nisroch because there is no
Assyrian god named Nisroch! Some have suggested that Nisroch might be the god
Enlil, whose name was sometimes used as an epithet of the god Ashur, the chief
god of Assyria. Or he might be Ninurta the Assyrian god of war. But in both
cases the biblical form of the name does not match the forms preserved in
Assyrian sources. Others suggest that the name of the god Nisroch (Heb. nsrk)
was a corruption of the name Marduk. Yet Lettinga points out: “There is no
evidence that Sennacherib especially worshipped the divinity whose city,
Babylon, he thoroughly destroyed in 689 BC. Sennacherib does not call Marduk
his god but Assur.” But Lettinga goes on to suggest, based on Sennacherib being
buried in the city of Assur, that the name Nisroch is a blend of the divinity
names Assur and Marduk since Sennacherib had taken the statue of Marduk to a
temple in Assur after he destroyed Babylon.
Another
commentator, giving sage advice, offered this suggestion: “To date, no Assyrian
god by the name of Nisroch is known. However, given the Biblical record for
accuracy in the reporting of obscure details of ancient life, it is reasonable
to assume that archaeology has simply failed to uncover the data as yet. The
implication is that this was the private tutelary [guardian or protector] god
of the king.”
Rabbi
Adin Steinsaltz, in a footnote on the rabbinic story based on this passage,
says: “Because Sennacherib worshiped in the house of Nisroch (the house of the
neser – the plank from Noah’s ark that Sennacherib turned into a god), his
sons, Adrammelech and Sharezer, came and smote him.” In Aramaic, the word nsr
could mean “plank.” In Syriac, it could mean board. Jastrow gives the
definition of “board” for “neser” and “nisra.” Instead of looking for an
unknown Assyrian or Babylonian god, or saying the name Nisroch is a corruption
of some god, we should consider the possibility that the god he worshiped was a
plank of wood … wood from Noah’s Ark! Sennacherib had heard the story about the
Flood from an Israelite or Judean, but because of pagan influence in his life,
he thought that the plank was the god who saved Noah and not the Lord God
Almighty, Maker of Heaven and Earth! During his fifth campaign to Mount Nipur
Sennacherib came across the remains of Noah’s Ark and brought back a plank and
worshiped it as his personal god.
Where was
the Temple of Nisroch located? Cogan and Tadmor also state: “Likewise, the
location of the Nisroch Temple remains, for the present, enigmatic” (1988:
239). There are several possibilities for the location of this temple. The
first would be in Sennacherib’s “Palace without Rival” in Nineveh. A second
possibility would be Assur, one of the provincial capitals of Assyria and the
city where Sennacherib was buried. Neither city has revealed any evidence for
this temple. It has been suggested that Sennacherib was murdered in
Dur-Sarruken, a provincial capital about 20 kilometers to the north of Nineveh.
Perhaps this is where we should look for the House of Nisroch where Sarruken
might preserve the name Nisroch!
Conclusion
It can
not be said with 100% certainty that Sennacherib worshiped wood from Noah’s
Ark, but it could be said that the “rabbinic legend” is historically plausible,
if not probable. This “legend” has its basis in historical reality. If that is
the case, Sennacherib saw Noah’s Ark on Mount Nipur (Cudi Dagh) in the
mountains of Ararat / Urartu, because he was never on, or in the area of, Agri
Dagh, the (late) traditional Mount Ararat!
[End of
quote]
In my article:
I definitely favour Çudi (or
Judi) Dagh as Noah’s mountain of disembarkation.
