by
Damien F. Mackey
The truth is that Royce Erickson’s
article makes all the difference to the geography of the Book of Tobit, showing
that the angel Raphael knew perfectly well to where he was leading young
Tobias, and that the book’s Media, Ecbatana and Rages do not stand in need of
special interpretation.
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 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”; while 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.
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.
And again, Charan (Haran), in Syria, is, according to the
Douay version of Tobit, ‘midway’ between Nineveh and ‘Media’ (11:1): “And as
they were returning they came to Charan, which is in the midway to Ninive …”.
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”.
An old truth
restored
What is patently
clear to me is that the travelling party, Raphael and Tobias, could not
possibly have been, as the commentators think they were, heading eastwards from
Nineveh to the traditional land of Media because of the fact that the
travellers arrived at the Tigris river in the evening, and that, later, they came
to Charan (Haran/Harran).
It is quite
possible (without hurting my reconstruction in the slightest) that “Nineveh”
here was actually Calah (Nimrud), that is, Nineveh in the Genesis and Jonah
sense of “the great city” complex (Genesis 10:11-12): “From
that land he went forth into Assyria, and built Nineveh and Rehoboth-Ir and
Calah, and Resen between Nineveh and Calah; that is the great city”.
Cf. Jonah 3:3: “So Jonah arose, and went unto Nineveh,
according to the word of the Lord. Now Nineveh was an exceeding great city
of three days’ journey”.
For Tobit and his
wife were taken into captivity by the Assyrian king, “Shalmaneser”, who, given
that the family was Naphtalian, must also have been king Tiglath-pileser (2
Kings 15:29): “Tiglath-Pileser king of Assyria
came and took Ijon, Abel Beth Maakah, Janoah, Kedesh and Hazor. He took
Gilead and Galilee, including all the land of Naphtali, and
deported the people to Assyria”.
To where did
Tiglath-pileser remove (deport and resettle) his Israelite captives?
Why, to “Calah”
(greater Nineveh) and, most interestingly, to “the cities of the Medes” (2
Kings 18:11): “The king of Assyria exiled the
Israelites to Assyria and settled them in Halah [Calah], in Gozan by the Habor
River, and in the cities of the Medes”.
Enter Royce (Richard) Erickson with his mind-blowing (2020)
article:
A PROBLEM IN
CHALDAEAN AND ELAMITE GEOGRAPHY
(3) A PROBLEM IN
CHALDAEAN AND ELAMITE GEOGRAPHY
with its own Tiglath-pileser-like ‘deportations’ of the
lands of Chaldea, Elam, Media and Persia hundreds of kilometres to the NW of
where they are conventionally situated.
The truth is that Royce Erickson’s
article makes all the difference to the geography of the Book of Tobit, showing
that the angel Raphael knew perfectly well to where he was leading young
Tobias, and that the book’s Media, Ecbatana and Rages do not stand in need of
special interpretation.
Thanks to Royce
Erickson, an ancient may now do once again as the travelling party had done in
the Book of Tobit, head westwards from “Nineveh” (Calah?) to the Tigris river,
and on to Haran, and then on to Ecbatana and Rages in the land of Media.
And Haran can once
again be, as old Tobit had known it, “in the
midway to Ninive”.
Royce Erickson’s
Figure 1 gives his proposed identification of Ecbatana as Abadaniye in his
(revised) land of Media:
Now, whether Royce
Erickson’s version of Ecbatana, as the admittedly very like-named Abadaniye, is
the correct one remains to be determined.
If one is to take
seriously the information in the book of Tobit, then Ecbatana, in a plain, must
be within two days’ walk of a place called Rages, in the mountains.
And Haran must be
midway between Ecbatana and Nineveh.
Regarding this
last point, Royce’s Abadaniye would appear to be perhaps a bit too far
westwards to enable Haran to qualify as a midway point for the travellers.
Locating Tobit’s Ecbatana
‘Yes’, [Raphael] replied, ‘I have been
there many times; I am acquainted with it
and know all the roads. I have often
traveled to Media, and would stay with
our kinsman Gabael who lives in Rages
of Media. It is a journey of two days
from Ecbatana to Rages; for it lies in
a mountainous area,
while Ecbatana is in the middle of the
plain’.
Tobit 5:6
In terms of
the name, Royce (Richard) Erickson appears to have chosen very well, indeed,
for his identification of Ecbatana in Media, opting for Abadaniye.
He has
written:
….
Introduction – A Geographic Anomaly
Herodotus
attempted to describe the origins of the Median and Persian nations in the 8th
and 7th centuries BC while both were still intermittently subject to Assyrian
domination. He described how a man named
Deioces became king, unified the Medes and founded Agbatana, their first
capital city:
“Thus
settled upon the throne, he (Deioces) further required them to build a single
great city, and, disregarding the petty towns in which they had formerly dwelt,
make the new capital the object of their chief attention.
The
Medes were again obedient, and built the city now called Agbatana (Ecbatana),
the walls of which are of great size and strength, rising in circles one within
the other. The plan of the place is that each of the walls should out-top the
one beyond it by the battlements. The nature of the ground, which is a gentle
hill, favours this arrangement in some degree, but it was mainly effected by
art.
The
number of the circles is seven, the royal palace and the treasuries standing
within the last. The circuit of the outer wall is very nearly the same with
that of Athens.” (Herodotus ….
Agbatana (variant version Ecbatana) no longer
exists.
Its
ruins and location have never been positively identified. Modern scholars believe they are on a tell
near Hamadan, Iran, based on the similarity of names and assumptions about the
location of ancient Media.
There is a small town in central Tukey north
of Konya called Abadaniye, very similar phonetically to Agbatana. A little more
than 100 years ago its Armenian name was Egdavama. Next to it lies a barren,
gentle hill with a circumference of about 6 miles, very much like the circuit
wall of classical Athens, 5.25 miles.
its gentle slope would favor the arrangement of seven concentric walls
rising one above the other, just as Herodotus describes the walls of
Agbatana. According to Greek tradition, other Median
major cities were Laodicea,
Rhages
,and Apamea, all three not far from
Ecbatana. These are their later
classical Greek names; their original Median names are unknown. Modern scholars tentatively locate these
sites near Tehran, based on the assumption that Agbatana was in Iran, but with
admittedly very sparse historical or archaeological support.
Strangely enough in south central Turkey very near modern Abadaniye
described above, lie the modern towns of Dinar and Ladek, previously named
Apamea and Laodicea by the Greeks. Thus there is strong circumstantial evidence
that the core of the ancient Median Empire around 700 BC was not in Iran, but
in central Turkish Anatolia, over 600 miles to the West. This could be written
off as an absurd concept supported by astounding coincidence, so allow me add a
few more facts to strengthen the case.
Early Persians were closely intertwined with the Medes geographically
and historically. Originally Median vassals, the Persians later ousted the
Median king Astyages by means of a coup d’etat aided by the defection of most
of the Median army, and established the Persian Empire under Cyrus the Great,
incorporating the entire Median Empire.
The original capital of the Persian Empire was founded by Cyrus II on
the site of his victory over Astyages, known to the ancients as
Pasargadae. Until today its location
remains unknown, but is assumed by experts to be somewhere in southwest Iran,
based once again on historical deduction without strong material archaeological
support, despite numerous attempts to find any.
Once again, we find in central Anatolia today two towns with the modern
Turkish names of Pazarkaye and Khorasi not far from Abadaniye. I propose that Pazarkaye is the modern site
of ancient Persian Pasargadae, and Khorasi (pronounced Khorashi) is on the site
of a proposed Persian town named after either Cyrus I or Cyrus II, Persian
kings whose names were pronounced “Kurush.”
Finally, detailed Neo-Assyrian
military campaign records mention several other towns that they specifically
connect with Persia and Media. These
towns are supposed by modern scholars to be located somewhere in Iran, where
they cannot be found. Their Assyrian names are Amadi, Urak, Allabria, and Bustus. The first two are associated by the
Persians with Media and the second two with Persia. The names of all four of these towns are very
closely matched by four modern sites in Turkish Anatolia, very close to the
proposed Median and Persian town sites already discussed.
….
|
Assyrian Name |
Variants |
Modern
Turkish Name |
Associated
With |
Matching
Rationale |
|
Amadi |
Kar-Amadazi, Karamadazi |
Çubuklu, Konya |
Media |
Kar-Amadazi is the variant Assyrian
name of Amadi. Recent previous name of
Turkish Cubuklu was Karamadazi |
|
Bit-Matti |
Matiana |
Goreme, Nevsehir |
Media |
Recent previous historical name of
Turkish Goreme was Matiana. Located close to Abadaniye (Agbatana) and Ladek
(Laodiceia) |
|
Allabria |
|
Alabag, Konya |
Persia |
Name very similar to Turkish Alabag
(-ag is a common Turkish word ending). Location in close proximity to
Pazarkaya (Pasargadae) and Khorasi (Khurush).
|
|
Bustus |
Bushtu, Push, Pusutu |
Pusat, Konya |
Persia |
Clear name similarity with Turkish
Pusat, located close to Pazarkaya and Khorasi
|
Table 1 - Cities
with Persian and Median Names in Anatolia
….
[End of quote]
My problem, though, with
Royce’s choice of Abadaniye, north of Konya - now that I am trying to take more
seriously than hitherto the Book of Tobit’s geographical indicators - is that
it could not really enable for Charan (Haran) to be, as according to Tobit
10:13: “… in the midway to Ninive …”.
This is how the angel
Raphael will describe the geography and topography of Median Ecbatana and Rages
(Tobit 5:6):
‘Yes’, he replied,
‘I have been there many times; I am acquainted with it and know all the roads.
I have often
traveled to Media, and would stay with our kinsman Gabael who lives in Rages
of Media. It is a journey of two days from Ecbatana to Rages; for it lies in a
mountainous area, while Ecbatana is in the middle of the plain’.
Adana
An
important city, with an Ecbatana-like name, and which does, indeed, lie in the
middle of a plain, is “Adana …. Situated in the middle of the Cukurova Plain (Cilician Plain)
….”: https://www.allaboutturkey.com/adana.html
And
a glance at a relevant map will show that Adana (given there as Adanya) -
rather than Royce Erickson’s Abadaniye - appears to fit rather well with regard
to Charan’s (Haran’s) being “… in the midway to Ninive …”.
With
Konya some 345 km to the NW of Adana, hence going further away from Haran, then
Abadaniye to Konya’s north would be located too far westwards, I should think, for
it to fit the geography of the Book of Tobit concerning its location of Ecbatana.
Adana may possibly be the
Abdadana of neo-Assyrian (the era of Tobit and Tobias) inscriptions:
https://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/bdadana-region-in-western-media/
“In 716 B.C. Sargon II
during his eighth campaign received tribute from Bīt-Abdadāni, Namar,
Sangibutu, and the country of the “mighty Medes” (see F. Thureau-Dangin, Une
relation de la huitième campagne de Sargon, Paris, 1973, line 39)”.
Adana was a city of great
administrative importance and it was centrally located:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adana
Adana … is a large city in
southern Turkey. The city is situated on
the Seyhan
River,
35 km (22 mi) inland from the northeastern shores of the Mediterranean Sea. It is the administrative
seat of the Adana
province,
and has a population of 1,816,750 (Seyhan, Yuregir, Cukurova, Saricam) … making
it the largest city in the Mediterranean Region of Turkey.
Adana lies in the heart
of Cilicia, which some say, was once
one of the most important regions of the classical
world. ….
Home to six million people, Cilicia is an important agricultural area, owing to
the large fertile plain of Çukurova.
Adana is a centre for
regional trade, healthcare, and public and private services.
Agriculture and logistics
are important parts of the economy. The city is connected to Tarsus and Mersin by TCDD train. The closest
public airport is Çukurova International Airport.
Etymology
The name Adana (Turkish pronunciation: [aˈda.na] …; Armenian: Ադանա; Greek: Άδανα)
has been used for over four millennia. ….
….
History
Hittite warrior in Adana Archaeological
Museum
Bronze Age
Inhabited by Luwians
and Hurrians, Kizzuwatna had an
autonomous governance under Hittite protection, but they
had a brief period of independence from the 1500s to 1420s BC. [sic] According
to the Hittite inscription of Kava, found in Hattusa (Boğazkale), Kizzuwatna was ruling Adana,
under the protection of the Hittites, by 1335 BC. With the collapse of
the Hittite
Empire around
1191–1189 BC, native Denyen sea peoples took control of
Adana and the plain until around 900 BC. ….
Iron Age
Then Neo-Hittite
states were
founded in the region with the Quwê state
centred on Adana. Quwê and other states were protected by the Neo-Assyrian
Empire,
though they had periods of independence too. After the Greek migration into
Cilicia in the 8th century BC, the region was unified under the rule of
the Mopsos dynasty
… and Adana was established as the capital. …. The Assyrians took control
of the regions several times before their collapse in 612 BC. ….
[End of quote]
Of potential
significance for Adana’s (as Ecbatana) connecting to Rages in the mountains (‘…
for it lies in a mountainous area, while
Ecbatana is in the middle of the plain’), is this piece of
information from Britannica (emphasis added):
https://www.britannica.com/place/Adana-Turkey
Adana, city, south-central Turkey. It is situated in the plain of Cilicia, on the Seyhan River (the ancient Sarus River).
An agricultural and industrial centre and the country’s fourth largest city, it
probably overlies a Hittite settlement that dates from approximately
1400 bce [sic], and its history has been profoundly influenced by its
location at the foot of the Taurus Mountain passes leading to the Syrian
plains. ….
A possible location for Tobit’s Rages
For what need we now to be
looking in relation to Tobit’s Rages?
Well, if
Adana is Tobit’s Ecbatana, then Rages must needs be - as according to Tobit 5:6
- two days’ distance from Adana in the plain, and Rages must be situated in the
(presumably Taurus) mountains.
Moreover,
according to the Book of Tobit, two camels were employed on the trip (9:5): “So
Raphael with the four servants and two camels went to Rages in Media and stayed
with Gabael”. That potential mode of transport likely needs to be taken
into account with regard to the time needed to cover the distance.
I am no
expert on camels - had a nervous ride on one in 1990 to the Giza pyramids. But
I would estimate that Rages ought not to be much in excess of, say, 100 km from
Ecbatana (Adana).
Ancient
conditions, topography, tracks, etc., would also need to be factored in.
Perhaps some
generous, informed reader will help out here.
Anyway,
after much consideration, I have picked out Karatepe as the best candidate for
ancient Rages that I can come up with at this stage. And this, despite none of
its known names having any likeness to Rages.
Karatepe,
like Rages, was in the mountains:
“Karatepe is
situated in the foothills of the Taurus Mountains, on the west bank of the
Ceyhan River in the northeast corner of the Cilician Plain”
It was
prominent in the neo-Assyrian (Tobit’s) century: “It is a single-period,
hilltop fortress that was built by a local ruler named Azatiwata at the end of
the 8th century BC”.
Karatepe is
about 115 km distance from Adana (by car).
1 hr 26
min (115.4 km) via O-52/E90
The distance may be
stretching those two camels!
And it was
under the rule of Adana (Ecbatana): “… a local ruler named Azatiwata … was a
dependent of Wariku/Awariku, king of Que, whose capital was at Adana”.
For more on this Wariku of
Adana, see e.g. my articles:
Ahikar
was, like his uncle Tobit, already prominent during the reign of Assyria’s
Shalmaneser
(3) Ahikar was,
like his uncle Tobit, already prominent during the reign of Assyria's
Shalmaneser
Ahikar,
Uriakku (Arioch) of Adana (Ecbatana), extended as Deioces (Daiukku) of Ecbatana
(3) Ahikar,
Uriakku (Arioch) of Adana (Ecbatana), extended as Deioces (Daiukku) of Ecbatana
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