10 UNDER PERSIAN RULE

;

Generally speaking, the Jews enjoyed humane treatment under Persian rule, only alloyed now and again by extortionate taxation. Bagoses, governor under Artaxerxes II, imposed on the country a tax of fifty drachmas for every lamb of the daily sacrifice for seven years, in consequence of a quarrel between Johanan the high priest and Joshua his brother. Concerning a rebellion against Artaxerxes III (Ochus, 362-338), which ended in the destruction of Jericho and the carrying away captive of many Jews to Hyrcania, we have but vague reports.

In the north the extent of the restored state was hardly greater than that of the former kingdom of Judah, while in the south, where Edomite tribes had forced their way into the country, it was hardly so great. From the dense population which appears to have dwelt in the land by the end of the Persian supremacy, we may conclude that other immigrations had taken[134] place besides those recorded in the books of Ezra and Nehemiah. There were, moreover, numerous Jewish communities, not only in the regions about the Euphrates, but in the countries round Palestine, and even in Asia Minor and Egypt, which remained in touch with the mother country, and provided sacrifices and other gifts for the temple.

It is true that the hopes of the complete restoration of their former might and independence cherished at the time of the return from captivity had not been fulfilled. The splendid promises of the prophets withdrew from the mean and narrow sphere of the present into an ideal and remote future. If any expectations of political power still existed, they had to be abandoned perforce. The pressure of the times taught and compelled the people to turn their eyes to internal and spiritual conditions, by no means to the detriment of the community. The period of the Babylonian exile, comparatively short though it was, had wrought a complete change in the religious views of the nation. The leaning towards heathen cults, which had been so strongly manifest in earlier times, had completely disappeared; the prophets and psalms of this date employ no weapon but ridicule against idolatry. The sufferings they had endured, the infliction of the long-threatened chastisement, had brought about a purification of religious feeling. The adherents of heathen cults had withdrawn from the Jewish society in time of oppression, and the result had been a tightening of the bond that held them together, and a stern abhorrence of intermixture with foreigners, born of a keen instinct of self-preservation and strengthened by the memory of old and mournful experience. Contact with the Magian religion, which predominated in the Persian Empire and permitted no image-worship, may have done something towards this end; at least an acquaintance with eastern Asiatic conceptions is evident in the writings of the prophets of the exile (Ezekiel and Zechariah). The belief in the personal existence of angels, and of evil spirits likewise, the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead in the enlightened aspect of the immortality of the soul, a greater accuracy of chronological statement, etc., are intellectual acquirements which the Jews brought with them from exile and developed further under the same influences.

10.1 King Hammurabi of Babylon

;

King Hammurabi of Babylon

 King Hammurabi of Babylon  was destined for kingship since time immemorial, when two powerful gods, Anu and Enlil, entrusted to a third god, Marduk, control over destiny, on Earth as in heaven. At that time, too, the gods set Babylon above all other lands, and its rule was made everlasting. Here is how Hammurabi describes himself on an inscribed black basalt stele we have come to call the Code of Hammurabi: At that time, to give happiness to the people, Anum and Enlil pronounced my name "Hammurabi," me, the pious and god-fearing ruler, to decree equity in the land, to eradicate the wicked and the evil so that the powerful might not oppress the powerless, to rise like Shamash and illumine the land for the black-headed (people). Primordial selection, self-praise, and dedication to justice combine readily in Mesopotamian tradition: before Hammurabi at least two kings, Ur-Nammu of Ur (III) and LipitIshtar of Isin, cover the same ground, albeit more succinctly, in the prologues to legal prescriptions they issued for their own people. If we treat the three components of such sentiments separately, we may note that the first two items-divine preference and boast-are quasi-formulaic in Mesopotamian monumental royal inscriptions; indeed they are featured in inscriptions of rulers who, we now know, had every reason to be modest about themselves. That these two elements seem to us more apgOl propriate to Hammurabi is doubtless because in books on world history, on the art of antiquity, on the evolution of consciousness, or on the spirit or ethics of law, we have long since conceded to this Babylonian king the third attribute: champion of justice. Indeed, "Hammurabi" and "Lawgiver" have come to be practically synonymous in most modern publications. BABYLON Hammurabi, who ruled from 1792 to 1750 BCE, came to the throne almost a hundred years after his ancestor Sumu-abum established his dynasty at Babylon in 1894. At that time Babylon was no major power, but its political history went back at least to the time of the Agade (Akkadian) Dynasty. One of its kings, Shar-kalisharri, built a temple to the deities Annunitum and II-aba in Babylon. During the Ur III period diverse persons were appointed ENSi, "governor," of Babylon. The name of the city was written KA..DINGIR. (RA) in Sumerian, equivalent to bab ilim in Akkadian, meaning "God's Gate," a name it held throughout its history. Whether or not "God's Gate" is itself folk etymology on a very ancient and no-longerunderstood name is still under discussion. During Hammurabi's time, Babylon was also known in written form as TIN.TIR, and there is a History and Culture "Hammurabi" or "Hammurapi"? There is still a debate on how to read the king's name, and for this reason you will often find two spellings: "Hammurapi" and "HammurabL" It is generally accepted that the name contains two elements: hammu and rap/bi. The issue has gotten complic~ted because some would treat the name as Babylonian (East Semitic) and others as Amorite (West Semitic). As the first element is undoubtedly West Semitic, the second should also be treated as such. But, at this point the problems mushroom. The cuneiform script itself was invented for Sumerian and adapted for Akkadian, so it is not well suited to represent a number of consonants that occur in Semitic languages. Scribes use five to six different cuneiform signs to write the name, most often spelling it ha+am+mu+ra+bi. The sign that we transcribe h"a represents a number of Semitic phonemes am~ng which were /:tet (a voiceless pharyngeal) and cayin (a voiced pharyngeal). The difference between them, however, is significant because the "hammu-" element would mean "heat" (hence "Sun") if the first consonant was heard as a het (but possibly also "father-in-law"), but "people, nation" or "paternal uncle, kinsman" if heard as an cayin. For the second element of the name, "mighty, vast" would be its meaning if read -rabi, but something to do with healing if read -rapi. In older literature, the tendency was to differ on the meaning of the first element (hence "Sun" or "[Divine] Kinsman") but to understand the second element as -rabi. But because some scholars conlikelihood that before the Agade period, it had a name that was pronounced *Baballr but written BAR.KI.BAR. In Hebrew the city was called babel, allegedly because God "confounded (balal) , the speech of the whole earth" (Genesis 11:9); but we get our own name for the city from the Greek translation of the Bible, the Septuagint, where it was written babylon. Babylon sat astride the Arakhtum-either a branch of the Euphrates or the great river itself before it shifted its route-and its soil could be among the most fertile in the ancient world if constantly worked and watered. Its ruins are divided among a number of tells that are now partially walled-off for display to tourists visiting Iraq; but the immense remains that are still 902 nected the Babylonian Hammurabi with a king of Shinar named Amraphel (Genesis 14), they opted for -rapi as the second element. When documents in alphabetic cuneiform were recovered from Ugarit (Ras Shamra) in the 1930S, a number of its kings of the second half of the second millennium were seen to be named cmrp, and this spelling was retrojected on the name of the famous king of Babylon, thus leading many to read his name cammu + rapi, meaning "The (Divine) Kinsman/Uncle heals." This interpretation is possible; but in this chapter (as in the Cidlizations of the Ancient Near East reference set), the traditional "Hammurabi" is kept because there is no reason to assume that in different cultures names with homonymic components must have the same meaning. Moreover, Mesopotamian scribes exclusively used the sign for the syllable -bi in "Hammurabi" (as almost always in other names with -rabi) even when they had another sign for -pi. In the West, in Alalakh (modem Tell Atchana), scribes would sometime use GAL, the Sumerian word meaning "vast, large," instead of the -rabi element in "Hammurabi." Finally, in Babylonian traditions, presumably closer to a truer understanding of the meaning of the name, "Hammurabi" was understood as kimta rapastu, "Vast Nation," again favoring -rabi as the second element. Moral: It is all right for people to use either spelling, provided that they not become dogmatic about their choice. to be seen there are those of first millennium

 

10.2 Samsu-iluna was the seventh king of Babylon

Samsu-iluna was the seventh king of the founding Amorite dynasty of Babylon, ruling from 1750 BC to 1712 BC, or from 1686 to 1648 BC. He was the son and successor of Hammurabi by an unknown mother. His reign was marked by the violent uprisings of areas conquered by his father and the abandonment of several important cities.

• also known as 萨姆苏·伊路那

10.3 Tukulti-Ninurta I called Nimrod king of the Assyrian Empire

-


Tukulti-Ninurta I (reigned 1244-1208 BCE) was a king of the Assyrian Empire during the period known as the Middle Empire. He was the son of Shalmaneser I (reigned 1274-1245 BCE) who had completed the work of his father, Adad Nirari I, in conquering and securing the lands that had once been the Kingdom of Mitanni. Tukulti-Ninurta I, therefore, inherited a vast empire that was largely secure. Not content with resting on the achievements of his father and grandfather, Tikulti-Ninurta I expanded Assyria’s holdings further, toppled the kingdom of the Hittites, crushed the Nairi people of Anatolia, and enriched the palace treasury with loot from his conquests. An adept warrior and statesman, he was also a literate man who was the first Assyrian king to begin collecting tablets for a library in the capital city of Ashur. He is best known for the sack of Babylon and plundering the sacred temple of the city and has been identified as the king known as Nimrod from the biblical Book of Genesis 10:8-10, who was a great warrior, famous hunter, and Assyrian king. The historian Susan Wise Bauer comments on the Nimrod/Tukulti-Ninurta I identification, writing:

The chronology is difficult, but Tukulti Ninurta is probably the king called Nimrod in Genesis 10:10: a mighty hunter and warrior whose kingdom included Babylon, Erech [Uruk] Akkad, and Nineveh, the same expanse as that claimed by Tukulti-Ninurta for Assyria. Weirdly enough, this Hebrew version of the name of the Assyrian great king has become an English synonym for a foolish and ineffectual man (“What a nimrod!”). The only etymology I can find for this suggests that, once called  Nimrod” in an ironic reference to the “mighty hunter”. Apparently the entire Saturday-morning audience, having no memory of Genesis genealogies, heard the irony as a general insult and applied it to anyone bumbling and Fudd-like. Thus a distorted echo of Tukulti-Ninurta’s might in arms bounced down, through the agency of a rabbit, into the vocabulary of the twentieth century (270).

10.4 Ibiranu sixth king of Ugarit

-


Ibiranu 
 (reigned c. 1235 BC – c. 1225/20 BC) was the sixth king of Ugarit, a city-state in northwestern Syria. He was the second-eldest son of Ammittamru II. Ibiranu's older step-brother and heir apparent to the throne, Utri-Sarruma, decided to leave the kingdom when his mother's marriage was annulled, and Ibiranu became the next king of Ugarit.^[1] Ibiranu reigned between c. 1235 and 1225/20 BC, and was a contemporary of Tudhaliya IV and Arnuwanda III of Hatti. As a vassal state of Hatti the king was answerable to the viceroy at Carchemish.^[2]
After he became king, Ibiranu failed to present himself to the Hatti overlord as the diplomatic protocol of a vassal state required him to do. His failure to do so, and to send valuable gifts to compensate for his mistake raised concerns and he received several letters of reprimand from the local viceroy, Ini-Teshup, and the king's son, Pihawalwi. The letters, discovered among the cuneiform tablets found at Ugarit, also revealed that Ibiranu failed to send sufficient troops to participate in the king's campaigns.^[3] On suspicion that Ibiranu was keeping his best chariots in Ugarit, a letter from the Carchemish viceroy states that an inspector from the Hatti king would be sent to Ugarit to verify the number of troops at Ibiranu's disposal.^[4] The king's reluctance to present his allegiance to the Hittites seems to suggest a loss of confidence in their protection. This explanation is corroborated by a letter found in the Ugaritic archives addressed to Ibiranu from the Assyrian king, Tukulti-Ninurta I, describing the heavy defeat he inflicted on the Hittites in northern Mesopotamia

===================================
 Genesis 10: 25
  and to Heber were born two sons, the name of the first, Peleg; because in his days the Continent was split up; and his brother's name was Joktan.
 "Peleg" or "Phleg" or "Fleg" in Hebrew was "Split or slit off."

 To Eber were born two sons: the name of the one was Peleg, because in his days [the population of] the earth was divided [according to its languages], and his brother's name was Joktan.





 

10.5 EGYPT Middle Kingdom 18th Dynasty begins at Thebes

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18th Dynasty begins at Thebes

EGYPT
 Middle Kingdom 
 is the period in the history of ancient Egypt stretching from the establishment of the Eleventh Dynasty to the end of the Fourteenth Dynasty, between 2050 BC and 1652 BC.

 The period comprises two phases, the Eleventh Dynasty, which ruled from Thebes, and the Twelfth Dynasty onwards, which was centered around el-Lisht.

The Eleventh Dynasty of Ancient Egypt was a group of pharaohs whose earlier members are grouped with the four preceding dynasties to form the First Intermediate Period, while the later members from Mentuhotep II onwards are considered part of the Middle Kingdom. They all ruled from Thebes.

An inscription carved during the reign of Wahankh Intef II, the third pharaoh of the Eleventh Dynasty, says that he was the first of this dynasty to claim to rule over the whole of Egypt, a claim which brought the Thebans into conflict with the rulers of Herakleopolis Magna during the Tenth Dynasty. Intef undertook several campaigns northwards, and captured the important nome (regional governorship) of Abydos.

Warfare continued intermittently between the Thebans and the Herakleopolitans until the fourteenth year of Nebhetepra Mentuhotep II, when the Herakleopolitans were defeated, and the Theban dynasty began to consolidate their rule. Mentuhotep II commanded military campaigns south into Nubia, which had gained its independence during the First Intermediate Period. Some type of military action took place against Palestine, after which the pharaoh reorganized the country and placed a vizier (high government official) at the head of civil administration for the country.

Mentuhotep IV (reign 1998–1991 BC) was the final pharaoh of the Eleventh Dynasty. His reign is recalled in inscriptions at Wadi Hammamat (near Thebes) that record expeditions to the Red Sea coast in search of stone for the royal monuments. The leader of this expedition was Mentuhotep IV's vizier, Amenemhat, who is widely assumed to be the future pharaoh Amenemhet I (reign 1991 BC – 1962 BC), the first king of the Twelfth Dynasty. Amenemhet is believed by some Egyptologists to have either usurped the throne or assumed power after Mentuhotep IV died without an heir. Thus the Eleventh Dynasty gave way to the more illustrious Twelfth Dynasty.

Amenemhet I built a new capital for Egypt known as Itjtawy ("Seizer-of-the-Two-Lands") at a still-unidentified location. Having established his son Senusret I as his junior co-regent in 1971 BC, Amenemhat was murdered in 1962 BC by a royal bodyguard while Senuseret I was far away campaigning against Libyan invaders. Senuseret rushed to Itjtawy to prevent a takeover and assumed the throne (reign 1971–1926 BC), proving the value of the coregency system, in which the ruler and his intended heir govern simultaneously. This practice lasted throughout the Twelfth Dynasty and provided great stability during an eventful, and often turbulent, period in Egyptian history.

10.6 THE PATRIARCHAL PERIOD

'

THE PATRIARCHAL PERIOD:

The Middle Bronze Age (2000-1550BC)

It is with Abraham and the other Patriarchs that the biblical story is first reported in the context of a historical

setting which can, with some certainty, be identified. While the Bible does not attempt to correlate the Patriarchal

narratives with the chronology of any other nation, two passages place the Patriarchs some 400 (Gen 15:13) to 430

years (Ex 12:40-41) prior to the Exodus event. There are good reasons to place the Exodus near the beginning of the

thirteenth centuryBC

The Near East in the Middle Bronze Age

Mesopotamia

The Amorites

. Towards the end of the third millennium

BC

, rulers of the Sumerian Ur III Dynasty of Lower

Mesopotamia began to feel the pressure of a semi-nomadic group referred to in their writings as the mar.tu. The

MAR

.

TU

also appear in Akkadian texts where they are called

Amurru

, or “westerners”—the Amorites. This group

migrated into Sumer and Akkad and, as heirs of the Sumerians, established kingdoms around conquered cities.

1

Although textual evidence is lacking—aside from the biblical references to Amorites as inhabitants of Canaan—

a wave of Amorites apparently also moved down the Levantine coast into the region of Palestine sometime shortly

before or after 2000

BC

.

2

With the dominance of Ur broken, southern Mesopotamia broke into a mosaic of smaller states. Southern

Mesopotamia was the scene of a str

uggle between Isin, ruled by Sumerian speaking Semitic kings, and Amorites at

Larsa, while Eshnunna, a city with Elamite connections, asserted its independence. Meanwhile, to the north, the

Assyrian kingdom first became viable in the region which would later bear its name.

While these struggles need not concern us, two important law texts are known from the “Isin and Larsa Period”

(ca. 2000-1800

BC

): the code of Lipit-Ishtar, a ruler of Isin, and the laws of Eshnunna.

3

The former was laid out in

Sumerian, while the latter was written in Akkadian. Both antedate the most famous of ancient law codes, the Code of

Hammurabi (see below), and like it exhibit parallels to the biblical Covenant Code (Ex 21-23). These similarities

indicate a long standing legal tradition, at least among certain populations of the Near East.

The Middle Bronze Age (2000-1550

BC

about 1894BC, an Amorite prince established himself in a city near Kish, known in Sumerian as

Ka-dingir(“Gate of God”), in Akkadian as  bab-ilu(“Gate of God”) or

Bab-ilanu(“Gate of the gods”). This is the place knownin Hebrew asbabel

and passed to us by way of the Greeks as “Babylon.” A dynasty arose there with eleven kings

ruling some 300 years. The names of the kings are Amorite, and the dynasty is called the First (or Amorite) Dynasty

of Babylon.

10.7 THE JOURNEY OF TERAH: TO UR-KASDIM OR URKESH

 

THE JOURNEY OF TERAH:

TO UR-KASDIM OR URKESH

Genesis 11 records a line of descent from Shem t

hat culminates with Terahben-Nahor, who

begotAbram, Nahor and Haran(11:27).

THE HURRIAN LEDGE

The most likely place for that setting is the region known as the HurrianLedge. This stretch of land, well watered by rivers

and rainfall, runs acrossthe upper arch of the Fertile Crescent, near the sources of the Euphrates and

Tigris Rivers, with rugged mountains to the north,

east and west, andMesopotamia to the south. Here the Hurrians established themselves, and by

the third millennium they had flourishing city-stat

e kingdoms, especiallyalong the north-south and east-west trade routes that link Anatolia to thePersian Gulf and the Zagros Mountains to the Mediterranean coast. By the

mid-second millennium their power was declining and

their kingdomseventually faded away, but Hurrians were still found in scattered areas,including Canaan where they can be identified withthe Horites of the Bible.

1

The Hurrians were not Semites, but Akkadians and

other Semites lived inHurrian cities, bringing their languages and customs with them. This melding

may underlie similarities between personal names in

Genesis 11 and namesof cities and towns of the Hurrian Ledge: Sereg (Sarugi), Terah (Turahi),Nahor (Nahor). It may also underlie the similaritybetween names of women

of Terah's household and those of Hurrian goddesses

: Sari/Sarah (Sar-natum)and Milcah (Malkatu).

=

10.8 Kingdom or Kings of Ugarit

//

Ugarit is located on the Mediterranean coast in modern day Syria, almost exactly opposite the northeast tip of Crete .  Around the 8th millennium BCE, that is during the Neolithic or "pre-pottery period", people in the Levant (Syria/Palestine) started to group together and form a sedentary lifestyle...

 2nd millennium BCE, is known as the Kingdom or Kings of Ugarit period.

the city reached new economic heights under its eight different kings (Ammistamru I, Niqmaddu II, Arhalbu, Niqmepa, Ammistramu II, Ibiranu, Niqmaddu III and Ammurapi)

Reign	Names of the Kings
c. 1850	Niqmaddu I ?
c. 1825	Yaqarum I ? (The sequence of these two early kings may be reversed)
The early kings of Ugarit are known only from a heavily damaged tablet (KTU 1.113). The sequence and chronology are uncertain.
c. 1360	'Ammishtamru I
1360–1330	Niqmaddu II
1330–1324	'Arhalbu
1324–1274	Niqmepa
1274–1240	Amistamru II
1240–?	'Ibiranu
?–1225	Niqmaddu III
1225–1180	'Ammurapi

Preliminary Alignment of the Kings of Ugarit with the Hebrew Patriarchs

King of Ugarit	Biblical Name [Jubilees]	Reign Dates BC	Lived
	Shelah		1672–1605
Ibiranu I	Eber	?–1584	1655–1584
Ya'dur Addu		1584–?
Niqmepa II	Nahor ben Serug	?–1555	1594–1555
Ibiranu II	[Abram, husband of Nahor's sister]	1555–?
’Ammurapi I	Amraphel	?–1504	?–1504
Niqmepa III	Nahor ben Terah	1504–ca 1475	?
Ibiranu III	Abram ben Terah	ca 1475–1458	1545–1458
Niqmepa IV		1458–?	?
Ibiranu IV		?	?
Niqmaddu I		?	?
Yaqaru	Jacob	?–1400	1465–1392

10.9 Abraham in Egypt

==========================


Abraham first reigned at Damascus .

 Hattusili forbade his merchants to acquire Ugaritic real-estate, or to remain in Ugarit throughout the year.

Abraham Was the commander of his own company of troops, augmented by those of his Amorite allies. Moreover, he is successful in overtaking and defeating a coalition of invading kings.

"Abram reigned at Damascus, being a foreigner, who came with an army out of the land above Babylon, called the land of the Chaldeans: but, after a long time, he got him up, and removed from that country also, with his people, and went into the land then called the land of Canaan, but now the land of Judea, and this when his posterity were become a multitude; 



Abraham in Egypt

the Jews were called Ermiuth, which when interpreted after the Greek language means Judaeans

and that they were called Hebrews from Abraham. And he, they say, came with all his household into Egypt, to Pharethothes the king of the Egyptians, and taught him astrology; and after remaining there twenty years, 
removed back again into the regions of Syria: but that many of those who had come with him remained in Egypt because of the prosperity of the country.

Pharethothes was apparently Pharaoh Thutmosis I, the third king of the 18th Dynasty and the New Kingdom, who ruled for 8 years beginning in 1505, the year before Abraham entered Egypt, and was then replaced by Thutmosis 

It was only after supposedly marrying his wife off to the king of Egypt that Abraham returned to Canaan and proceeded to take on the assembled forces of the Syrians, Hittites, and Assyrians somewhere near Ugarit.

he Egyptians had removed the Asiatic "Hyksos" from the eastern delta and from the very throne of the pharaohs in 1534 and finally defeated them in 1531.

the process of bolstering their defences by sending an armed force into Canaan and driving the Assyrians and their Anatolian allies, as well as the remaining Hyksos forces in the area, back across the Orontes while at the same time placing Abraham's brother on the throne of Ugarit

Thutmosis I is credited with conquering the eastern shore of the Mediterranean as far north as Syria. As for Abraham's position at the court of the Egyptians

Abraham entered Egypt just after the rise of Thutmosis I in 1505 BC only to turn around within the year and use his newly acquired Egyptian reinforcements in the service of his battle with their common enemy, the Assyrians.

The Battle with Chedorlaomer

Manetho embedded what look and read like stories, or tales, or legends, about the more interesting rulers in his lists. There are points in the text of the bible where one notices what look like these same excursions into storytelling and myth making, and the story of Abraham and his exploits is not free from this method of exposition. His battle with Chedorlaomer looks and feels like such a story. Yet it is not impossible to see in it more than a mere bold-faced tall tale.

To set the scene, Chedorlaomer has ruled over the "Cities of the Plain" for six years (in the original, 12). He and three allies,

... Made war with Bera king of Sodom, and with Birsha king of Gomorrah, Shinab king of Admah, and Shemeber king of Zeboiim, and the king of Bela―the same is Zoar. All these came as allies unto the vale of Siddim―the same is the Salt Sea.

In the seventh, the local kings of Sodom, Gomorrah, and nearby Amorite towns revolt. And in the second half of that year, Chedorlaomer, reinforced by three other kings, marshals his forces to march on those very same Cities of the Plain. The progression of Chedorlaomer as he makes his way south battling one after the other local king is such that one has to wonder if there were other cities and towns in revolt along the way, or whether he has simply taken the opportunity to increase the sphere of his influence. In any event, the locals are wildly outnumbered, or simply employed soldiers of an inferior temperament, and run at the first sign of the combined army. In the process, Abraham's nephew Lot is taken prisoner and placed in danger of spending the rest of his life in slavery, a theme that resonates with later events in 19th Dynasty Egypt. The ancestors of the Jewish people seem continuously to have found themselves in alternating positions of authority and servitude. Abraham, a prince himself, will have nothing of this. He raises a force (of supposedly only 318) from his own men and follows Chedorlaomer northward as he and his cohorts return to their own cities.

And there went out the king of Sodom, and the king of Gomorrah, and the king of Admah, and the king of Zeboiim, and the king of Bela―the same is Zoar; and they set the battle in array against them in the vale of Siddim; against Chedorlaomer king of Elam, and Tidal king of Goiim, and Amraphel king of Shinar, and Arioch king of Ellasar; four kings against the five.

Amraphel identified him with Hammurabi of Babylon, whom they knew well from their records, and confused Shinar with an ancient name for Babylonia rather than Sanhar in Syria near Ugarit, where ’Ammurapi ruled. They saw Arioch and identified him with Eri-Aku of Assyria, with which they identified Ellasar. They saw Tidal and found in his name an echo of one of the Tudhaliyas of the Hittites, a non-Semitic nation, and saw in them the "Goiim," an identification that may turn out to be correct after all. And finally, they read Chedorlaomer and saw in the name an analogue of the names of the kings of Elam in what would later be called Persia when they were under Babylonian vassalage during the so-called Kudur Dynasty. What are we left with, then? What remains of the story in Genesis after the misidentifications of the scholars have been stripped away are what appear to be four kings of cities located somewhere in or near Syria with a political and economic interest in the region near the Dead Sea, or, as we shall see in a moment, four generals in the employ of a major regional power of the time, named, at least in Hebrew transliteration, Chedorlaomer, Amraphel, Arioch, and Tidal

At this time, when the Assyrians had the dominion over Asia, the people of Sodom were in a flourishing condition, both as to riches and the number of their youth. There were five kings that managed the affairs of this county: Ballas, Barsas, Senabar, and Sumobor, with the king of Bela; and each king led on his own troops: and the Assyrians made war upon them; and, dividing their army into four parts, fought against them. Now every part of the army had its own commander; and when the battle was joined, the Assyrians were conquerors, and imposed a tribute on the kings of the Sodomites, who submitted to this slavery twelve years; and so long they continued to pay their tribute: but on the thirteenth year they rebelled, and then the army of the Assyrians came upon them, under their commanders Amraphel, Arioch, Chodorlaomer, and Tidal. These kings had laid waste all Syria, and overthrown the offspring of the giants. And when they were come over against Sodom, they pitched their camp at the vale called the Slime Pits, for at that time there were pits in that place; but now, upon the destruction of the city of Sodom, that vale became the Lake Asphaltites, as it is called. However, concerning this lake we shall speak more presently. Now when the Sodomites joined battle with the Assyrians, and the fight was very obstinate, many of them were killed, and the rest were carried captive; among which captives was Lot, who had come to assist the Sodomites.

Arioch is identified not as king of Ellasar, purportedly Assyria, but of Cappadocia on the Halys River on the south shore of the Black Sea the end of the 16th century BC the power of Assyria extended as far north as the Black Sea and as far south as the Dead Sea.

And who was this mysterious Assyrian king under whom these four subordinate kings, or generals, attacked the land of Sodom? As we shall see in Chapter Thirteen, the king of Assyria in 1504BC was Puzur-Asshur III, and he lived to tell the tale until replaced by Enlil-nasir I in 1489, six years after the birth of Isaac.

After defeating the Assyrians, Abraham appears to have returned to Egypt. At least one source has him teaching astrology there at the City of the Sun, Heliopolis, for 20 years. Only upon the accession of Thutmosis III under the watchful eye of his aunt, Hatshepsut, did Abraham again leave Egypt..

kings of Ugarit,
Ibiranu I.
Ya'dur Addu
Niqmepa II (ca 1600)
Ibiranu II
’Ammurapi I.
Niqmepa III
Ibiranu III
Niqmepa IV (ca 1500)
Ibiranu IV
Niqmaddu I.
Yaqaru

’Ammurapi I (Hammurabi I) isn't Amraphel and Ibiranu III, Abraham; Niqmepa III having ruled after the death of Amraphel and before Abraham. 

King of Ugarit	Biblical Name [Jubilees]	Reign Dates BC	Lived
	Shelah		1672–1605
Ibiranu I	Eber	?–1584	1655–1584
Ya'dur Addu		1584–?
Niqmepa II	Nahor ben Serug	?–1555	1594–1555
Ibiranu II	[Abram, husband of Nahor's sister]	1555–?
’Ammurapi I	Amraphel	?–1504	?–1504
Niqmepa III	Nahor ben Terah	1504–ca 1475	?
Ibiranu III	Abram ben Terah	ca 1475–1458	1545–1458
Niqmepa IV		1458–?	?
Ibiranu IV		?	?
Niqmaddu I		?	?
Yaqaru	Jacob	?–1400	1465–1392

/////////////Abram, the father-in-law of Terah  


Damascus is identified with Abraham by Damascenus, rather than with Ugarit, to which it bears rather more of a similarity than does the Dammasek or Darmesek of ancient times.


Isaac in Egypt

The story of the life of Isaac 

though Nahor was already king of Ugarit Later, Jacob would travel to Paddan-Aram in search of a wife and wind up in Harran, where again in "Mesopotamia," he would visit his mother's brother Laban, the son of "Bethuel the Syrian" 


At the age of thirty Isaac had two sons, Esau and Jacob, and then, upon the occurrence of another famine, the book of Genesis is adamant that Isaac did not, at that time, return to Egypt. The Lord specifically said to him, "Go not down into Egypt ..."! This is strange, and there follows the tale of his migration to Gerar in the land of the Philistines and an exact duplicate of the story of Abraham's attempt to fob off his wife as his sister, as well as a series of folk etymologies of the names of various places in the region.

11 Sarah the sister of Thutmosis, facilitated her marriage to Abraham

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The Hyksos appear in Egyptian history during the Second Intermediate Period.

Africanus  [Josephus]		Correct?	EusebiusArm			Identification
Dynasty1 King	Reign yrs	Reign yrs	Reign yrs	Dynasty King	Ruled BC	Dynasty King [other ID]
13	453	453	453	13	2002–1549	13th Dynasty [Theban]
14	184	284	284AS	14	2002–1718	14th Dynasty [Minoan]
A152	284	184	189	E172	1718–1534	["Hyksos" (Phoenician)]
Saites [Salatis]	19 [13]	19	19	Saites	1718–1699
Bnon [Beon]	44 [44]	40	40	Bnon	1699-1659
Pakhnan [Apachnas]	61 [36]	31	—	—	1659-1628	[Khyan]
Staan [Jonias]	50 [50]	50	—	—	16285-1578?	[Sethos]
Arkhles [Assis]	49 [49]	30	30	Arkhles	1578?-1548?
Aphobis [Apophis]3	61 [61]	14	14	Aphobis	1548?–1534	[Apepi]
		[Khamudi, 3]			[1534-1531]	[Kamose]
		"Thebans"
		248	250	E152	1549–1301	18th Dynasty
		116 (5 legitimate kings4)	190 (5 kings)	E162	1301–1185	19th Dynasty
					1286-1219	Ramses II
"Other [or Hellenic] Hyksos"
A162	518 (32 kings)	518 (29 kings/ 35 rulers)			1504–986	[Canaan]
A172	151 (43 kings)	151 (43 kings)			ca 1509–ca 1358	[Crete]
					ca 1358-?	Theseus
1The commonly used scheme is from Africanus. 2Prefixed lettering has been used to distinguish the dynasties of Africanus from those of Eusebius. 3Josephus has Apophis after Apachnas. 4Ramses I, Seti I, Ramses II, Merneptah, Seti II.  5400 years before 400-year Stela. ArmArmenian.  ASAlternate version from Syncellus. R Reconstructed.  Green: Cometary years.

============================

Who Were the Hyksos?

 Kamose, the brother of Ahmose, tells who the Hyksos were

I sailed north in my might to repel the Asiatics through the command of Amun, exact-of-council, with my brave army before me like a flame of fire and the Medjay archers a-top our fighting-tops on the lookout for the Asiatics in order to destroy their places....

"Bad news is in your town: you are driven back in the presence of your army, and your authority is restricted ...."

I put in at Per-djedken, my heart happy, so that I might let Apopy experience a bad time, that Syrian prince with weak arms, who conceives brave things which never come about for him! ....

"Syrian prince"? The Egyptian word is actually Retenu, and it refers to the entire region from the Orontes River to the Negev

in 1511 BC Chedorlaomer, purportedly of Elamite extraction, began his rule over the Canaanite kingdoms of Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, Zeboiim, and Zoar. In 1534 Ahmose had defeated the Hyksos at Avaris in the eastern delta. Sometime around 1531, after a siege that consumed the better part of three years, he defeated the remaining Hyksos forces holed up at Sharuhen and thus left a power-vacuum in southern Canaan, a vacuum that would soon be filled by Chedorlaomer in alliance with Amraphel, Arioch, and Tidal.

hese kings acting under the authority of the Assyrians. Now the Hyksos were early on afraid of Assyrian attack, and were more concerned with them than with any kind of threat the legitimate Egyptian dynasty  made both the upper and lower regions pay tribute, and left garrisons in places that were the most proper for them. He chiefly aimed to secure the eastern parts as foreseeing that the Assyrians, who had then the greatest power, would be desirous of that kingdom, and invade them ...

"Rulers of Foreign Lands," the Hyksos, were none other than the rulers of Canaan and Transjordan among whose inhabitants were the very enemies of Chedorlaomer mentioned in Genesis—Bela, Bera, Birsha, Shinab, and Shemeber—as well as the unnamed kings of the Rephaim, Zuzim, Emim, Horites, Amalekites, and Amorites. Yet none of these peoples approached the power of the Hyksos, even assuming their military defeat by the Egyptians of the New Kingdom. This is the whole problem with the identification of the Hyksos as Canaanites and the root of the mystery surrounding their demise. In short, where did they go after their defeat by Ahmose

the Hyksos not only as Shepherds, but as "Phoenicians." This squares with the identification by Kamose of the Hyksos as inhabitants of Retenu.

Abraham entered Egypt sometime during the reign of Thutmosis I.

Sarah  the sister of Thutmosis, facilitated her marriage to Abraham 

By the time he visited Melchizedek, Abraham was already a prince. Never before had he been addressed as such. His new position had something to do with what happened in Egypt.