by
Damien F. Mackey
Roundly dated to c. 1800 BC, the Mari letters - which include
mention of
the great Hammurabi, king of Babylon (c. 1792 to c. 1750 BC, conventional dating) – have
awaited a more satisfactory revised dating.
This would not actually be achieved for a
full 50 years after the documents
had been discovered by French
archaeologist André Parrot, in 1936.
Bryant
G. Wood writes (2006):
Amazing Discoveries in Biblical Archaeology: The Mari
Archive
The value of the Mari
texts for biblical studies lies in the fact that Mari is located in the
vicinity of the homeland of the patriarchs, being about 200 miles (320 km)
southeast of Haran. It thus shares a common culture with the area where the
patriarchs originated. Some documents detail practices such as adoption and
inheritance in ways that accord with how these practices are shown in the
Genesis accounts.
The tablets speak of
the slaughtering of animals when covenants were made, judges similar to the
judges of the Old Testament, gods that are also named in the Hebrew Bible, and
personal names such as Noah, Abram, Laban, and Jacob. A city named Nahur, possibly
named after Abraham’s grandfather Nahor (Gn 11:22–25), is mentioned, as well as
the city of Haran, where Abraham lived for a time (Gn 11:31–12:4). Hazor is
spoken of often in the Mari texts, and there is a reference to Laish (Dan) as
well. A unique collection of 30 texts deals with prophetic messages that were
delivered to local rulers who relayed them to the king. ….
[End
of quote]
Mari
wrongly dated
Roundly dated to c. 1800 BC, the Mari letters
– which include mention of the great Hammurabi, king of Babylon (c. 1792 to c. 1750 BC, conventional dating) – have awaited
a more satisfactory revised dating.
This would not actually be achieved for a
full 50 years after the documents had been discovered by French archaeologist
André Parrot, in 1936. For it was only in 1986 that Dean Hickman recognised
that leading Mari figures approximately contemporaneous with Hammurabi, such as
the powerful Syro-Assyrian ruler, Shamsi-Adad I, and his father, Uru-kabkabu, were
actual biblical figures at the time of King David of Israel. In his
groundbreaking article, “The Dating of Hammurabi” (C&AH Proc. 3rd
Seminar of Catastrophism and Ancient History, Uni. of Toronto, 1986), Dean
Hickman identified Shamsi-Adad as David’s Syrian foe, Hadadezer, and
Uru-kabkabu (ru-kab) as the latter’s father, Rekhob (2 Samuel 8:3): “David
smote also Hadadezer, the son of Rehob, king of Zobah, as he went to recover
his border at the river Euphrates”.
Unfortunately revisionists, generally – even
some very good ones – have not chosen to build upon Dean Hickman’s solid base.
And look what they might be missing out on!
The following are what I have been able to
develop on the strength of Dean Hickman’s revised context:
Zimri-Lim of Mari is King Solomon’s
foe, Rezon (I Kings 11:23-25): “Yahweh raised up another adversary against King
Solomon, Rezon, son of Eliada, who had fled from his master Hadadezer, King of
Zobah. He gathered followers around him”.
Eliada, father of Rezon, is
Iahdu-lim, the father of Zimri-Lim.
Note the common iada iahdu element,
plus the theophoric.
This already gives us a handy clutch of four
biblical characters: (i) Rekhob, father of (ii) Hadadezer; and (iii) Eliada,
father of (iv) Rezon.
No other proposed revisions of the Hammurabic
era can offer anything as biblically substantial as this.
But that is not all.
Added to this, there are discernible biblical
(Genesis, Davidic and Solomonic) influences at the time.
For instance, the Genesis influence in the
architecture of Zimri-Lim:
Hammurabi and Zimri-Lim as
contemporaries of Solomon. Part Two (b): Zimri-Lim's Palace and the four
rivers?
Also, the frequent claims of the kings of the
time, notably Hammurabi and Rim Sin, to have been, like David famously was,
shepherd kings:
Shepherd King contemporaries of King
David
(6)
Shepherd King contemporaries of King David
Rim Sin
goes even further, to calling himself, like David truly was (Acts 13:22), a man
after the heart of the god.
“Prince Rim-Sîn, you are the
shepherd,
the desire of his heart”.
While historians of antiquity would draw the
conclusion that Rim Sin must have influenced King David – and rightly so,
according to the conventional dating which would have David more than half a
millennium after Rim Sin (c. 1822 BC to 1763 BC) – the truth of the matter is
that King David was an older contemporary of Rim Sin and of Hammurabi.
And well known now is the Mosaïc influence
upon the so-called Code of Hammurabi.
The major cultural and sapiential influences
were coming directly from Israel (the Hebrews).
Can
further biblical identifications be made?
I believe so.
But the following will need some geographical
adjustment.
With the passing of Shamsi-Adad I, the
greatest king of the region was Yarim Lim. One governor estimated that,
“No king is truly powerful just on his own: 10 to 15 kings follow Hammurabi of
Babylon, as many follow Rim- Sin of Larsa, as many follows Ibal-pi-El of
Eshnunna, and as many follows Amut-pi-El of Qatna; but 20 kings follow Yarim-Lim
of Yamḫad.” [FMA 82]
Yarim Lim, whose kingdom of Yamkhad has not
yet been properly defined, must have been the great Hiram king of Tyre, the
ally of David and his son, Solomon. Like Hiram, Yarim Lim was a tough
businessman, dealing in fleets of ships, who called his colleagues, “brother”,
and who did not like to be messed with:
King Solomon’s other great ally King
Hiram
(6)
King Solomon’s other great ally King Hiram
Yarim Lim’s
Kingdom
The Kingdom of Yamkhad (Yamhad), of
unspecified extent, appears to have been centred on Aleppo (Halab).
My tentative suggestion is that Yamkhad (Yam
perhaps being a reference to the Sea) was the poorly known Sealand kingdom,
which I think must be a re-located Chaldea:
Region Assyria meant by Mãt-tâmti, the
"Sealand"
(4)
Region Assyria meant by Mãt-tâmti, the "Sealand"
This would mean that Yarim Lim controlled
important coastal ports.
Yarim Lim may have been, like Shamsi-Adad I
is reputed to have been, a somewhat mobile ruler, moving from one major
location to the next.
These were the descendants of tent-dwelling
Amorites.
As the biblical Hiram, he is called King of
Tyre, so his influence must have spread right down the coast. We read, also,
that he could threaten to invade the land of Elam:
Yarim Lim I - Alchetron, The Free Social
Encyclopedia
“Yarim-Lim extended his influence to several
other important city-states in Syria through alliance and vassalage, including
Urshu and the rich kingdom of Ugarit. The relationship between Qatna and Yamhad
seems to have improved during Yarim-Lim's reign as well. The armies of Aleppo
campaigned as far as Elam … a tablet discovered at mari revealed the extent of
those military interventions … the tablet includes a declaration of war
against Dēr and Diniktum in
retaliation for their Evil deeds, a reminder to the king of Dēr about the
military help given to him for fifteen years by Yarim-Lim and the stationing of
500 Aleppan warships for twelve years in
Diniktum.
By the time of his death, Yarim-Lim, had more
than twenty kings as vassals and allies. According to Historian William
J. Hamblin he was at the time the "mightiest ruler in
the Near East outside of Egypt," he
died c. 1764 BC and was succeeded by his Son Hammurabi
I”.
The suggested relationship here, of Yarim Lim
and “his Son Hammurabi I”, would most likely be – with Yarim Lim now identified
as Hiram – the biblical combination of Hiram and his brilliant artificer
official (and perhaps son-in-law) Huram-abi:
“Huram-abi, also known as Hiram-abi, is a
significant figure in the biblical narrative, particularly in the context of
the construction of Solomon's Temple. He is mentioned in the Old Testament as a
skilled craftsman sent by King Hiram of Tyre to assist King Solomon in building
the temple in Jerusalem. His account is primarily found in 2 Chronicles 2”.
This potentially enlarges our clutch of
Mari-biblical characters to (i) Rekhob, father of (ii) Hadadezer; (iii) Eliada,
father of (iv) Rezon; (v) Hiram; and (vi) Huram-abi.
What about the contemporaneous David and
Solomon?
Very early in the peace I had been struck by
a most David-like name, Dadusha.
Surely, I thought, he must be David of the
Mari era.
However, there was a major geographical
problem that did not seem to allow this identification to be realised. Dadusha
was from Eshnunna, a town presumably located in Central Mesopotamia (see map
below) – far from where King David roamed.
It was only when geographical tsunamis
started rolling in:
More geographical ‘tsunamis’: lands of
Elam and Chaldea
(4)
More geographical ‘tsunamis’: lands of Elam and Chaldea
that it became possible radically to
reconstruct the geography of the ancient world, even to lifting cities out of
Sumer – even to lifting Sumer out of Sumer:
“The Sumerian Problem” – Sumer not in
Mesopotamia
(4)
“The Sumerian Problem” – Sumer not in Mesopotamia
Cutting to the chase here, to save space,
Eshnunna now re-emerged as Ashdod, the mighty Judean fort of Lachish:
As Ashduddu (Ashdod) is to Lachish,
so, likewise, is Eshnunna to Lagash
(4)
As Ashduddu (Ashdod) is to Lachish, so, likewise, is Eshnunna to Lagash
David now, all of a sudden, could be
Dadusha of Eshnunna, whose mother city was Girsu (Jerusalem):
Yahweh, Solomon, Jerusalem - Ningirsu,
Gudea and Girsu
(4)
Yahweh, Solomon, Jerusalem - Ningirsu, Gudea and Girsu
This would make it most likely that Ibal-piel
of Eshnunna, son of Dadusha, was Solomon, in his later, idolatrous phase.
No comments:
Post a Comment