by
Damien F. Mackey
The name “Esarhaddon” can by no means
be considered a good fit for “Osnapper” (var. “Asnapper”, “Asenaphar”).
Ashurbanipal fits somewhat better,
but an even better fit still is the
name Ashurnasirpal.
It is typical for conventional historians to presuppose that
any pagan account that resembles a biblical one always has the chronological
precedence.
I have spent many articles arguing that the opposite is generally
the case.
So, when a presumed c. 300 BC writer records a tale that is,
in some instances, uncannily like the much older Jonah story - as Bill Cooper (d.
2021) had rightly noted (“The Historic Jonah”, EN Tech. J., vol. 2,
1986, pp. 105–116) - my immediate reaction to this is that the Oannes legend
must have arisen from the Jonah story.
Certainly the latter resonates with Berosus’s description of
the Mesopotamians who “lived in a
lawless manner like the beasts of the field”.
And, again, the two names, “Jonah” and “Oannes”, are indeed
very similar.
It is common to identify Oannes with the Mesopotamian water
god, of knowledge, Ea (Sumerian Enki). And the account of Berosus seems to have
commingled Mesopotamian theology with a garbled recollection of the biblical
Jonah incident.
Some of the geography of Berosus, however, “Euxine Sea”
(Black Sea), “Erythrean Sea” (Indian Ocean?), is completely irrelevant to
Jonah, and is, moreover, internally contradictory.
Bill Cooper was right on the mark in describing what must
have been the mental state of the Ninevites at the time of Jonah’s arrival -
except that he has located all of this too early (so I think), to the era of
king Tiglath-pileser so-called III.
Things were far, far worse, I have suggested, at my
preferred moment in time for Jonah (early Esarhaddon):
The
‘Jonah incident’ historically identified
(4) The 'Jonah
incident' historically identified
Moreover, God was never going to use a pagan ‘theology’ to
reinforce his message.
The “representation of [Oannes] ... preserved to this day”
(Berosus) is the well-known fish man (kullulû) of which Bill Cooper had
provided a photo on his p. 111 (fig. 7).
It is none other than the prophet Jonah himself, depicted on
a wall of Ashurnasirpal’s NW Palace of Nimrud (Calah).
Question:
But wouldn’t Ashurnasirpal have ruled too early, whether conventionally
speaking or in revised history, to have been Jonah 3:6’s “king of Nineveh”?
Determining Ashurnasirpal’s historical
place
Given Ashurnasirpal’s conventional dates (c. 883-859 BC),
when considered in the context of the prophet Jonah’s known contemporaneity (cf.
2 Kings 14:25) with Jeroboam II, king of Israel (c. 793–753
BC or 786–746 BC), then it is most unlikely that any conventional scholar has selected
Ashurnasirpal as Jonah’s “king of Nineveh”.
And, amongst revisionist historians, the heavy focus has
been upon Ashurnasirpal’s presumed son and successor, Shalmaneser III, because
of the fact that his reign is thought to have fallen right in the middle of Dr.
I. Velikovsky’s re-located (500 years down the time scale) El Amarna [EA]
period.
Dr. Velikovsky himself (Ages in Chaos, I, 1952) had
tried various ploys to explain the apparent towering presence of Shalmaneser
III smack dab in the middle of EA, when the Assyrian king referred to in the
letters (EA #’s 15 and 16) was the differently named Ashuruballit.
This difficulty has since become known as “The Ashuruballit
Problem” (TAP).
Many have grappled with it, but none, Dr. Velikovsky
included, has managed to solve it.
Some have opted to leave Dr. Velikovsky’s revision behind
and try to develop a new system of revision.
Considering the compelling EA synchronisms that Dr.
Velikovsky was able to secure, however, albeit amidst a host of difficulties, I
have not chosen that road of departure, of ‘throwing out the baby with the
bathwater’, of:
Distancing
oneself from Velikovsky
(4) Distancing
oneself from Velikovsky
but prefer to look for answers to awkward situations like “The
Assuruballit Problem”.
Emmet Sweeney first released the stranglehold for me, and it
concerned Ashurnasirpal.
Emmet may have been the first to suggest that Shalmaneser
III had to be moved fractionally out of EA, thereby relieving TAP, and that his
supposed father, Ashurnasirpal, was the important Ashuruballit, EA’s “king of
Assyria”.
That was a new idea and immediately seemed like a good one
to me.
Now I felt that we were getting somewhere, as we no longer
had to try to match the name Shalmaneser with Ashuruballit, but with the more alike
(at least theophorically) Ashurnasirpal.
Since then, though, I have moved on to a far more radical
solution for TAP, as outlined, for example, in my article:
Chaotic
King Lists can conceal some sure historical sequences
(4) Chaotic King
Lists can conceal some sure historical sequences
Taking as correct Marc Van de Mieroop’s ‘Middle’ Assyrian
list, as set out on p. 294 of A History of the Ancient Near East ca. 3000
-323 BC:
Adad-nirari [I]
Shalmaneser [I]
Tukulti-Ninurta [I]
Assur-nadin-apli [I].
I would now regard Shalmaneser as a predecessor, rather than
the successor, of Ashurnasirpal.
The first chapter of the Book of Tobit, with its
neo-Assyrian succession of “Shalmaneser”; “Sennacherib”; and “Esarhaddon”,
becomes vital here, as does my identification of Tukulti-Ninurta [I] of the above
king-list with Sennacherib:
Tukulti
Ninurta and Semiramis
(4) Tukulti
Ninurta and Semiramis
Sometimes the revision requires a deeper digging than even
the initial deep dig.
Shalmaneser [I] of the list, our pesky Shalmaneser III of
TAP, now becomes the Shalmaneser (known as V) who, according to Tobit, preceded
Sennacherib.
Here we now have the Tobit 1 succession re-visited:
Shalmaneser; Sennacherib; Esarhaddon (the name Sargon rightly omitted, because
Sargon was Sennacherib):
Adad-nirari
Shalmaneser = Shalmaneser
Tukulti-Ninurta = Sennacherib
Assur-nadin-apli = (Ashurnasirpal) =
Esarhaddon
TAP? What problem?
Now that Ashurnasirpal has been established as belonging
very late in the neo-Assyrian era, we can return to the Jonah images connected
with him. E.g. the fish man.
Dagan, Two Jonahs, “Osnapper”
(Asnapper)
Later, it is said, the figure came to be associated with the
god, Dagan: (“Kulullu (“Fish Man”) “Dagon”): http://symboldictionary.net/?p=300
"
The kullulu was a guardian figure, a dweller of the sacred
Absu, the watery underground domain of the God Ea. Figures of the fish-man were
often concealed in the construction of buildings to serve as protective charms.
From about the fourth century, the figure was associated
(probably erroneously) with the god Dagan (meaning “grain”),
most commonly known by his Hebrew name, Dagon. Dagan was a vegetation god,
the father of the god Baal, the mythological creator of the plow.
Dagon is mentioned several times in the Hebrew scriptures,
where he is associated with the Philistines. It is to Dagon’s temple that the
Ark of the Covenant is taken after being captured from the Hebrews; the next
morning, they discover the statue of the god lying on the floor, sans head and
hands".
[End of quote]
Jewish tradition appears to concur with my view that Jonah
at the time of the reign of Jeroboam II was well separated in time from Jonah
when he witnessed at Nineveh, whose king is said to have been called “Osnapper”.
So much so, in fact, that rabbinical tradition will actually
speak of 'two Jonahs'.
Eight years ago (16th May, 2017) I had written on this:
“König, again, will make a point reflecting on chronology;
one that will be of great significance later on in this series, as we come to
discuss the period of floruit of Jonah, and his age. At the same time
König will tell of the Jewish tradition that the Assyrian king in the Book of
Jonah was “Osnappar” (var. As[e]napper), whom König would tentatively equate
with a known neo-Assyrian king, “Assurbanipal” (var. Ashurbanipal) (A History
of Israel, 2nd edn., SCM Press Ltd., London, p. 313, n. 11):
Jewish
tradition, however, contains also the information that the history contained in
the Book of Jonah was enacted in the reign of Osnappar (Ezr 4:10)
[Assurbanipal?], and, seeing that the date of Jeroboam II, and that of Osnappar
were different, the rabbinical tradition spoke of two Jonahs, of whom the first
was of the tribe of Zebulun and the second of the tribe of Asher (see, further,
Fürst, Der Kanon d. AT nach d. Ueberlief. in Talm. und Midrasch, p. 33 f.).
[End
of quotes]
No need, however, to go to the extreme of creating ‘two
Jonahs’. The prophet's long life can satisfactorily be accommodated by means of
his alter ego, Hosea (= Isaiah):
De-coding
Jonah
Ezra 4:10 (cited above) refers to “... the rest of the
nations which the great and honourable Osnappar deported and settled in the
city of Samaria, and in the rest of the region beyond the Rive”.
“Osnapper” (אָסְנִפִּר) is here
lauded as “great and honourable”, a description that the Jews would hardly have
used for, say, a Sennacherib, or for the general run of other inimical Assyrian
kings.
But they might well have done so in the case of the one
special individual, Esarhaddon, who had repented at the preaching of Jonah (my
view), who had allowed the pious Tobit to return home to his family, and who
had greatly exalted Tobit’s nephew, Ahikar, in the kingdom of the Assyrians.
Just as tradition has created ‘two Jonahs’, though there
should be only one, historians have created two, three, or even five same-named
Assyrian kings, though, once again, there was generally only the one.
The problem arises due to the over-stretching of chronology,
the solution to which requires a folding of ‘Middle’ Assyrian into the ‘Neo’
Assyrian period.
Esarhaddon as Ashurnasirpal-Ashurbanipal
Kings unnecessarily duplicated
http://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:637086/FULLTEXT01.pdf
“Staying in Nimrud, two gateway lions (A111) and a statue of the king (AI12,
Fig. 18) from the second half, based on the date of the temple inscription,
have been excavated from the Sharrat-niphi
temple of Nimrud. .... The statue in question is the only known one which
depicts Ashurnasirpal II. ...”.
Clearly,
the grandiloquent Ashurnasirpal is badly in need of one or more alter egos.
What
happens, of course, when same-named kings become dupli- tripli- cated,
due to chronological over-extension, is that scholars are forced to puzzle over
whether this or that particular document, record, building, artefact, etc.,
belongs to King I or King II, King III, etc.
This has happened
in many instances:
More ‘camera-shy’
ancient potentates
(4) More 'camera-shy' ancient potentates
And so, in
the case of the White Obelisk, some will confidently date this to the time of
Ashurnasirpal I (c. 1049-1031 BC), e.g. Mattias Karlsson (op. cit., pp. 53-54):
“As for
sources whose datings by scholars alternate between different time periods, the
290 cm high White Obelisk from Nineveh depicting tribute, royal warfare, cult,
hunting, and banquets are in line period rather than to Ashurnasirpal II.
....This conclusion is derived from various stylistic features such as the fact
that also the king’s officials wear fez-shaped hats. This clearly points to a
Middle Assyrian date, since the officials and nobility of Neo-Assyrian times do
not wear these headgears. .... Additionally, the coarse style which
characterizes the reliefs on the White Obelisk is very different from the
elegant style on the Rassam Obelisk. Since Nineveh, the provenance, was an
important core city the coarseness of the reliefs can not simply be explained
away as being “provincial art” from the time of Ashurnasirpal II.
Rather, it
should be understood as part of a chronologically determined art development,
closely related to the “Broken Obelisk” of Ashur-bel-kala (1073-1056).
.... It is
mostly philologists who have dated this obelisk to the second king. .... The
main argument here is that the shrine bīt-natḫi, mentioned in the
inscription on the White Obelisk ... is otherwise spoken of only by
Ashurnasirpal I .... This may however be just another result of the hazardous
preservation of sources”[,]
while others will argue that it pertains to Ashurnasirpal II (c. 883-859
BC):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashurnasirpal_I
“The White
Obelisk … is sometimes attributed to [Ashurnasirpal I] by historians, but
more usually to his later namesake, Aššur-nāṣir-apli II, because its internal
content (hunting, military campaigns, etc.) better matches what is known about
his reign …”.
The fact of
the matter is that the White Obelisk probably belonged to just the one king
Ashurnasirpal.
Along similar lines, I had, in my postgraduate thesis on King Hezekiah of Judah
(2007), folded the ‘Middle’ Babylonian king, Merodach-baladan I (c. 1170-1158
BC), with his namesake Merodach-baladan II of similar reign length (c. 720-709
BC), partly on the basis of historians being unsure whether a certain item of
building belonged to Merodach-baladan I or to II.
Now, the
comment that I made above about the surprising lack of statuary for
Ashurnasirpal applies basically as well to the Assyrian king, Shalmaneser V (c.
727-722 BC, conventional dating), who lacks any known relief depiction - at
least according to the article “Shalmaneser V and Sargon I”):
https://emp.byui.edu/SATTERFIELDB/Rel302/Shalmaneser%20V%20and%20Sargon%20II.htm
“The revolt
of Israel against Assyria during the days of King Hoshea, last king of Israel,
brought on a siege by the Assyrians (1 Kings 17). The siege was led by
Shalmaneser V, King of Assyria (there is no known relief depiction of
Shalmaneser V). During the siege, he died. Sargon II replaced
Shalmanezer V as King of Assyria, who finished the siege and sacked Samaria”.
[End
of quote]
And my
comment will apply again, amazingly, even to that master-king, Nebuchednezzar ‘the
Great’.
Dr. I.
Velikovsky wrote of the astonishing fact that (Ramses II and His Time, p.
184. My emphasis): “At Wadi Brissa in Lebanon, Nebuchadnezzar twice had his
picture cut in rock; these are supposedly the only known
portraits of this king”.
Ashurbanipal ‘replicating’ Esarhaddon
Fittingly, Esarhaddon is considered as a plausible candidate
for “Osnapper” - along with Ashurbanipal.
There is no tension at all with that in my revision,
according to which Esarhaddon was Ashurbanipal.
And so here I would like to introduce my two major
Assyrian alter egos for Esarhaddon: namely, Ashurbanipal and
Ashurnasirpal.
Elsewhere, I quoted John H. Walton re an inscription of
Esarhaddon’s telling that the king had humbled himself with “sackcloth”.
Walton (et al.) will repeat this in The IVP Bible Background Commentary: Old
Testament, p. 780), but will now include as well “Ashurbanipal”.
Esarhaddon and Ashurbanipal seem to be commonly confused in
antiquity, as well as later.
One can find many instances of Ashurbanipal seemingly
replicating Esarhaddon.
Previously, for example, I have written of this particular
case:
“Arcadio Del Castillo and Julia Montenegro have made a valiant effort to
identify the elusive biblical “Tarshish” in their article:
THE LOCATION OF TARSHISH: CRITICAL CONSIDERATIONS
Revue Biblique, 123, 2016, pp. 239-268
https://www.academia.edu/35529906/THE_LOCATION_OF_TARSHISH_CRITICAL_CONSIDERATIONS?auto=download
“But what struck me when reading through this article is yet
another case of, as it seems to me, a ‘historical’ duplication, Ashurbanipal
claiming what Esarhaddon claimed.
Writing of the neo-Assyrian sailing efforts, the authors
tell as follows (pp. 252-254):
… the only record we have of them sailing the Mediterranean
is when Sargon II gained control of Cyprus, which was further secured by his
successors, Sennacherib, Esarhaddon, and Assurbanipal, 668-627 BC….
Of course, the text of the Assyrian Inscription of
Esarhaddon defines the extent of the Assyrian king’s domain, in maritime terms,
from one area in the direction of the other, but we believe its extent would
have been within maritime limits of the Assyrian Empire itself. ....
What is conclusive is the fact that in Esarhaddon’s
Inscription the reference to the kings of the middle of the sea comes after
enumerating his conquests, which are listed as: Sidon … Arza … Bazu … Tilmun …
Shubria … Tyre … Egypt and Pathros … and Kush. And, since Bazu seems to be
situated in the northwest of Arabia and Tilmun on the Persian Gulf, very
possibly Bahrain … what seems more logical is to assume that it is a
delimitation in both seas of the cosmic ocean, this is the Upper Sea and the
Lower Sea.
So it would be a broad area that extended beyond the
Mediterranean; and reference is made to it just before saying that the Assyrian
king had established his power over the kings of the four regions of the Earth
…. What can of course be readily accepted ... is that there is a
clear parallel between the Inscription of Esarhaddon and a text of
Assurbanipal, which is inscribed on Prism B: after stating that he ruled from
the Upper Sea to the Lower Sea and that the kings of the rising sun and the
setting sun brought him heavy tribute, Assurbanipal says that he has brought
the peoples that live in the sea and those that inhabit the high mountains
under his yoke … and this reference, as we understand it, is very like
Esarhaddon’s text, since it is also “a general summary”. ....
[End of quotes]
And here is another example, this time from Eva Miller (“Crime
and Testament: Enemy Direct Speech in Inscriptions of Esarhaddon and
Ashurbanipal”, Journal of Ancient
Near Eastern History, Volume 6: Issue 2,
2020, “Abstract”):
“In Assyrian annals, the narrative device that we would call
‘direct speech’ is employed very rarely throughout most of Assyrian history
(beyond the framing device of the entire text as royal speech), with an uptick
in its popularity in the royal inscriptions of the last two well-attested
Neo-Assyrian monarchs, Esarhaddon and Ashurbanipal (Gerardi
1989: 245–46). ... Esarhaddon and
Ashurbanipal employ this literary feature more often than their predecessors
...”.
[End of quote]
Ashurbanipal, we find, supposedly repeats Esarhaddon’s
efforts.
Thus Wikipedia’s article, “Esarhaddon”: “Ashurbanipal
left in 667 BC [sic] to complete Esarhaddon's unfinished final campaign against
Egypt”.
....
“Ashurbanipal, who would famously gather ancient Mesopotamian literary works
for his
famous library, had already begun collecting such
works during the reign of Esarhaddon. It is possible that Esarhaddon is to be
credited with encouraging Ashubanipal’s collection and education …”.
Name
comparisons
The name “Esarhaddon” can by no means be considered a good
fit for “Osnapper” (var. “Asnapper”, “Asenaphar”). Ashurbanipal fits somewhat
better, but an even better fit still is the name Ashurnasirpal.
Troy Lacey, in “Recent Archaeological Finds in Assyria
Corroborate Scripture”:
https://answersingenesis.org/archaeology/recent-archaeological-finds-assyria-corroborate-scripture/
sees this Ashurnasirpal as the type of resettling Assyrian
king as depicted in Ezra 4:10, though he follows the conventional dating that
has Ashurnasirpal as a “prior ruler to those mentioned above whose reign is
conventionally dated from 883–859 BC”.
Thus he writes:
“Ashurbanipal, the author of the last inscription above, was
the son of Esarhaddon and is also mentioned in Scripture but, depending on the
translation, may be called by that name or by Asnappar, Osnapper, or Asenaphar
in Ezra
4:10, where he is also listed as an
Assyrian king who relocated non-Israelite people to the regions of Samaria.
“It is worth noting that a few of the inscriptions found in
the 1987–1992 excavation, as well as the newly discovered tunnel inscriptions,
corroborate biblical people and place-names, as well as the biblical accounts
of Assyrian practices.
For example, an inscription of Ashurnasirpal II (prior ruler
to those mentioned above whose reign is conventionally dated from 883–859 BC)
states,
The ancient city Calah which Shalmaneser, king of Assyria, a
ruler who preceded me, had built—this city had become dilapidated; it lay
dormant (and) had turned into ruin hills. I rebuilt this city. I took people
which I had conquered from the lands over which I had gained dominion, from the
land Suḫu,
(from) the entire land Laqû,
(from) the city Sirqu which is at the crossing of the Euphrates, (from) the
entire land of Zamua, from Bīt-Adini
and the Ḫatti,
and from Lubarna (Liburna), the Ḫatinu. I
settled (them) therein.
“The above Ashurnasirpal II passage not only demonstrates a
prevailing methodology of resettlement as recorded to still be practice
generations later [sic], as in Ezr a 4:10 (NKJV),
but the city of Calah is also mentioned in Genesis 10:11–12”.
[End of quotes]
The names, “Ashurnasirpal” (Aššur-nāṣir-apli
... “the god Aššur is the protector of the heir,”): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashurnasirpal_I
and “Ashurbanipal” (Aššur-bāni-apli, meaning “Ashur has
given a son-heir”): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashurbanipal are
quite similar, both phonetically and as to meaning.
And Esarhaddon had another name featuring similar elements “Ashur
... mukin apli”: Ashur ... (is) establisher of a legitimate heir”.
Another similar name that is going to be important for us is
that of the Assyrian king, Ashur-nadin-apli, successor of Tukulti-Ninurta.
Ashur-nadin-apli was variously named Ashur-nasir-apli (that is,
Ashurnasirpal).
In conventional terms, Esarhaddon’s reign (c. 680-668 BC)
runs far shorter than does that of Ashurnasirpal (c. 883-859 BC), but more
especially than that of the very long-reigning Ashurbanipal (c. 668-625 BC),
whose lengthy 43-year reign will turn out to be the correct figure for our composite
“king of Nineveh”.
Recalling
the fish-man
Why is Ashurnasirpal, Ashurbanipal, important in the Jonah
context?
Ashurnasirpal is important, I suggest, because he was the
one during whose reign there was depicted the bas-relief of the fish-man figure
(as reproduced in Bill Cooper's article) on the wall of his North-West Palace
at Nimrud (Calah).
Was this ‘the sign of the prophet Jonah’ (Matthew 12:39),
now depicted in carved stone by the architects of the Great King of Assyria?
Large whales were being hunted, too, at the time of
Ashurnasirpal.
P. Haupt, in “Jonah’s Whale” (Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, Vol. 46, no.
18), tells of king Ashurnasirpal receiving as tribute from Phoenicia some
teeth bones that Haupt thinks must have belonged to a sperm whale (pp. 155,
156):
“Sperm-whales are found in the Mediterranean, although they
are not frequent. ... in a passage of the cuneiform
annals of Assur-nacir-pal [Ashurnasirpal] we read
that this Assyrian king received, as tribute from Tyre, Zidon, Arvad,
and other places on the Phoenician coast, ivory teeth of the blower,
the creature of the sea. This blower with ivory teeth cannot
have been a narwhal ... or walrus ... these animals are not found in
the Mediterranean. The sperm-whale has, on each side of the
lower jaw ... from 20 to 25 conical (slightly
recurved) teeth which consist of the finest ivory”.
Haupt, who does not actually believe that Jonah could have
survived for three days in a whale, tells, nevertheless, that (p. 162): “...
the head of a giant sperm-whale may be more than 30 feet long”.
The Assyrian king must have been impressed with his gift of
whale teeth bones.
Haupt again (p. 157):
“... Assur-nacir-pal (885-860) states that he
placed two blowers of Ad-Bar-stone at the gates of the
palaces in the ancient capital of Assyria, Assur, now known
as Kileh Shergat ... the ideogram Ad-Bar means basalt and
... the field-director of the German excavations at Kileh
Shergat reports that a great many basalt fragments of sculptures have been
found, but the restoration of the figures has not been accomplished.
Assyriologists did not know that nakhiru ... blower
meant sperm-whale”.
The city of Calah (at Nimrud) was important, too, for
Esarhaddon.
Thus writes Barbara N. Porter (Images, Power, and Politics: figurative aspects of Esarhaddon's
Babylonian policy, 1994, pp. 71-72): “... Esarhaddon was actively
engaged in the expansion of the already large fort and
palace complex, or ekal masarti, in the Assyrian city of Calah (Nimrud),
not far from Nineveh. .... This building was
the centerpiece of Esarhaddon's extensive program to redevelop
Calah as a military and administrative center for Assyria, a program
that continued to the end of his reign”.
And it will be during the reign of Ashurbanipal that there
occurs the first appearance of “Oannes”.
Thus Frank M. Conaway (The
Kundalini Yoga Christian Master Is, 2014, p. 68) writes:
“Biblical scholars have speculated that Jonah may have been
in part the inspiration behind the figure of Oannes in late Babylonian
mythology .... The deity named “Oannes” first occurs in texts from the library
of Ashurbanipal (more than a century after the time of Jonah) [sic] as Uanna or
Uan, but is assimilated to Adapa ..”.
[End of quote]
Assimilating holy, miracle-working men to gods (apotheosis) is
what pagans have tended to do.
Did not the Lycaonians seek to deify the miracle-working
Paul and Barnabas? (Acts 14:11-12):
“When the crowd saw what Paul had done, they shouted in the
Lycaonian language, ‘The gods have come down to us in human form!’ Barnabas
they called Zeus, and Paul they called Hermes because he was the chief speaker”.
Again, Daniel 2:46: “Then King Nebuchadnezzar fell
prostrate before Daniel and paid him honor and ordered that an
offering and incense be presented to hi”.
Severe illness
Famously, Ashurnasirpal (I, so-called), likewise Esarhaddon,
likewise Ashurbanipal, suffered from a long and extraordinary illness.
Ashurnasirpal will desperately pray to the goddess Ishtar
for a cure ... “lamentation over the kings underserved suffering for a
persistent illness” (Donald F. Murray, Divine Prerogative and Royal
Pretension: Pragmatics, Poetics and Polemics ..., 1998, pp.
266-267):
http://jewishchristianlit.com/Texts/ANEhymns/lamIshtr.html
....
‘I have cried to thee, suffering,
wearied, and distressed, as thy servant.
See me O my Lady, accept my prayers.
Faithfully look upon me and hear my supplication.
Promise my forgiveness and let thy spirit be appeased.
Pity! For my wretched body which is full of confusion and trouble.
Pity! For my sickened heart which is full of tears and suffering.
Pity! For my wretched intestines (which are full of) confusion and trouble.
Pity! For my afflicted house which mourns bitterly.
Pity! For my feelings which are satiated with tears and suffering.
O exalted Irnini, fierce lion, let thy heart be at rest.
O angry wild ox, let thy spirit be
appeased.
Let the favor of thine eyes be upon me.
With thy bright features look faithfully upon me.
Drive away the evil spells of my body (and) let me see thy bright light.
How long, O my Lady, shall my adversaries be looking upon me,
In lying and untruth shall they plan evil against me,
Shall my pursuers and those who exult over me rage against me?
How long, O my Lady, shall the crippled and weak seek me out?
One has made for me long sackcloth; thus I have appeared before thee.
The weak have become strong; but I am weak.
I toss about like flood-water, which an evil wind makes violent.
My heart is flying; it keeps fluttering like a bird of heaven.
I mourn like a dove night and day.
I am beaten down, and so I weep
bitterly.
With "Oh" and "Alas" my spirit is distressed.
I - what have I done, O my god and my goddess?
Like one who does not fear my god and my goddess I am treated;
While sickness, headache, loss, and destruction are provided for me;
So are fixed upon me terror, disdain, and fullness of wrath,
Anger, choler, and indignation of gods and men.
I have to expect, O my Lady, dark days,
gloomy months, and years of trouble.
I have to expect, O my Lady, judgment of confusion and violence.
Death and trouble are bringing me to an end.
Silent is my chapel; silent is my holy place;
Over my house, my gate, and my fields silence is poured out.
As for my god, his face is turned to
the sanctuary of another.
My family is scattered; my roof is broken up.
(But) I have paid heed to thee, my Lady; my attention has been turned to thee.
To thee have I prayed; forgive my debt.
Forgive my sin, my iniquity, my shameful deeds, and my offence.
Overlook my shameful deeds; accept my prayer;
Loosen my fetters; secure my deliverance;
Guide my steps aright; radiantly like a hero let me enter the streets with the
living'.
....
Did readers pick up Ashurnasirpal's reference here
(seemingly straight out of Isaiah 38:14? KJV: ‘I did mourn as a dove’): “I
mourn like a dove”?
Ashurbanipal suffered an enduring illness.
This intriguing prayer was found in Ashurbanipal’s library:
….
... My bed is the ground! (penitential prayer alsīka ilī)
The prayer alsīka
ilī is one of the few extant examples of the group of
the šigû-prayers, individual laments addressed to a deity in which the
penitent acknowledges his sins and asks the god for absolution. ….
1. Incantation šigû: I have called upon you. My god,
relent!
2. Relent, my god! Accept my supplication!
3. Harken to my weary prayers!
4. Learn at once the disgrace that has befallen me!
5. Keep listening to my lament, which I have made!
6. May the night bring you the tears which I weep!
7. Since the day (you), my lord, punished me,
8. and (you), the god who created me, became furious with
me,
9. (since the day) you turned my house into my prison,
10. my bed is the ground, my sleeping place is dust,
11. I am deprived of sleep, distressed by nightmares,
12. I am troubled [in my ...], confused [in my ...].
B 9. I have been enduring a punishment [that I cannot
bear.] ….
And Esarhaddon?
Karen Radner provides this quite unsettling account of
Esarhaddon’s most unusual and constant illness (in “The Trials of Esarhaddon:
The Conspiracy of 670 BC”, 2007):
“.... Modern day man may well be able to muster considerable
sympathy for Esarhaddon whose symptoms were indeed rather alarming: As we know
from the correspondence left by the royal physicians and exorcists … his days
were governed by spells of fever and dizziness, violent fits of vomiting,
diarrhoea and painful earaches. Depressions and fear of impending death were a
constant in his life. In addition, his physical appearance was affected by the
marks of a permanent skin rash that covered large parts of his body and
especially his face. In one letter, the king’s personal physician – certainly a
medical professional at the very top of his league – was forced to confess his
ultimate inability to help the king: "My lord, the king, keeps telling me:
‘Why do you not identify the nature of my disease and find a cure?’ As I told
the king already in person, his symptoms cannot be classified.” While
Esarhaddon’s experts pronounced themselves incapable of identifying the king’s
illness, modern day specialists have tried to use the reported symptoms in
order to come up with a diagnosis in retrospect?’. ...”.
[End of quote]
For something akin to this in modern times, read Richard B.
Sorensen's account of Charles Darwin's strange and terrible illness
in "The Darwinian Emperor is Naked" (2011): https://www.academia.edu/42232462/The_Darwinian_Emperor_is_Naked
Unsurpassed
cruelty
When, previously, I have described Esarhaddon as “outdoing
others with his cruelty and vengefulness, terrifying”, I had particularly
in mind his alter ego of Ashurnasirpal, the cruellest of the
cruel amongst the generally merciless Assyrian kings.
Erika Belibtreu writes of it in her article, “Grisly
Assyrian Record of Torture and Death” (Editor, H. S. (2002;2002). BAR 17:01
(Jan/Feb 1991). Biblical Archaeology
Society): https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/f4af/bb82f1b7920fa9444e29eb128bd13832cd46.pdf
“The inscriptions and the pictorial evidence both provide
detailed information regarding the Assyrian treatment of conquered peoples,
their armies and their rulers. In his official royal inscriptions,
Ashurnasirpal II calls himself the “trampler of all enemies … who defeated all
his enemies [and] hung the corpses of his enemies on posts.” † The treatment of
captured enemies often depended on their readiness to submit themselves to the
will of the Assyrian king:
“The nobles [and] elders of the city came out to me to save
their lives. They seized my feet and said: ‘If it pleases you, kill! If it
pleases you, spare! If it pleases you, do what you will!’” †
“In one case when a city resisted as long as possible
instead of immediately submitting, Ashurnasirpal proudly records his
punishment:
“I flayed as many nobles as had rebelled against me [and]
draped their skins over the pile [of corpses]; some I spread out within the
pile, some I erected on stakes upon the pile … I flayed many right through my
land [and] draped their skins over the walls.” †
“The account was probably intended not only to describe what
had happened, but also to frighten anyone who might dare to resist. To suppress
his enemies was the king’s divine task. Supported by the gods, he always had to
be victorious in battle and to punish disobedient people:
“I felled 50 of their fighting men with the sword, burnt 200
captives from them, [and] defeated in a battle on the plain 332 troops. … With
their blood I dyed the mountain red like red wool, [and] the rest of them the
ravines [and] torrents of the mountain swallowed. I carried off captives [and]
possessions from them. I cut off the heads of their fighters [and] built
[therewith] a tower before their city. I burnt their adolescent boys [and]
girls.” †
"A description of another conquest is even worse:
“In strife and conflict I besieged [and] conquered the city. I felled 3,000 of
their fighting men with the sword … I captured many troops alive: I cut off of
some their arms [and] hands; I cut off of others their noses, ears, [and]
extremities. I gouged out the eyes of many troops. I made one pile of the
living [and] one of heads. I hung their heads on trees around the city.” †
“The palace of Ashurnasirpal II at Nimrud is the first, so
far as we know, in which carved stone slabs were used in addition to the usual
wall paintings. These carvings portray many of the scenes described in words in
the annals”.
[End of quotes]
Erika Belibtreu now moves on to describe the grisly Esarhaddon:
“Sennacherib was murdered by his own sons. Another son,
Esarhaddon, became his successor. As the following examples show, Esarhaddon
treated his enemies just as his father and grandfather had treated theirs:
“Like a fish I caught him up out of the sea and cut off his
head,” † he said of the king of Sidon; “Their blood, like a broken dam, I
caused to flow down the mountain gullies”; † and “I hung the heads of Sanduarri
[king of the cities of Kundi and Sizu] and Abdi-milkutti [king of Sidon] on the
shoulders of their nobles and with singing and music I paraded through the
public square of Nineveh. †".
And, finally, she tells of the abominable cruelty of
Ashurbanipal, supposed son of Esarhaddon:
“Ashurbanipal, Esarhaddon’s son, boasted:
“Their dismembered bodies I fed to the dogs, swine, wolves,
and eagles, to the birds of heaven and the fish in the deep…. What was left of
the feast of the dogs and swine, of their members which blocked the streets and
filled the squares, I ordered them to remove from Babylon, Kutha and Sippar,
and to cast them upon heaps.” †
“When Ashurbanipal didn’t kill his captives he “pierced the lips (and) took
them to Assyria as a spectacle for the people of my land.” † The enemy to the
southeast of Assyria, the people of Elam, underwent a special punishment that
did not spare even their dead:
“The sepulchers of their earlier and later kings, who did
not fear Assur and Ishtar, my lords, (and who) had plagued the kings, my
fathers, I destroyed, I devastated, I exposed to the sun. Their bones (members)
I carried off to Assyria. I laid restlessness upon their shades.
I deprived them of food-offerings and libations of water.” †
“Among the reliefs carved by Ashurbanipal were pictures of
the mass deportation of the Elamites, together with severed heads assembled in
heaps. Two Elamites are seen fastened to the ground while their skin is flayed,
while others are having their tongues pulled out. There is no reason to doubt
the historical accuracy of these portrayals and descriptions. Such punishments
no doubt helped to secure the payment of tribute—silver, gold, tin, copper,
bronze and iron, as well as building materials including wood, all of which was
necessary for the economic survival of the Assyrian empire”.
[End of quotes]
Was Ashurbanipal a vindictive type?
According to Lori L. Rowlett (Joshua and the
Rhetoric of Violence: A New Historicist Analysis, 1996, p. 112):
“Ashurbanipal’s] treatment of his enemies (internal and external) is
particularly horrible and vindictive …”.
And yet this - our biblical “king of Nineveh” - was
surprisingly literate and scholarly, having created a marvellous royal library
at Nineveh, and having also proudly proclaimed: ‘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’.
