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Author: Scriptural Research Institute
Publisher: Scriptural Research Institute
ISBN: 1989852408
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 277
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Book Description
King Solomon is arguably the most famous of all ancient Israelite kings, with several books in the Septuagint dedicated to him, or about him, or even by him, yet, to date, no archeological evidence for his life has been found. Additionally, the Testament of Solomon has survived from the Second Temple era which displays another side of King Solomon. The lifetime of King Solomon falls during the Third Intermediate Period (dark age) in Egyptian history, and therefore are no records of Solomon within the very limited Egyptian records from the time. Egyptologists believe the Kingdom of Egypt collapsed at the beginning of the time period, and by the time that Solomon would have lived, in the early-9th century BC, the king of Egypt only controlled the northern region, while the rest of Egypt was under the rule of the High Priest of Amen (Amun). The various books associated with Solomon that made it into the Septuagint, include 3rd Kingdoms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, Wisdom of Solomon, and Psalms of Solomon, als of which have been retranslated into modern English. The first book in this collection is 3rd Kingdoms, which tells the life of Solomon, likely from Ezra the Scribe's perspective, 500 years later. The book likely dates to before the reign of King Josiah, circa 700 BC, but is believed to have been redacted by Ezra the Scribe, or someone else in his era. The second book, Proverbs, also called Proverbs of Solomon, is generally attributed to King Solomon, who is explicitly referred to as the author of some of the proverbs. A number proverbs are known to have been copied from older collections of proverbs, most notably the Wisdom of Amenemope, which was apparently written by Amenemope son of Kanakht sometime before Pharaoh Akhenaten, circa 1350 BC. The third book, Ecclesiastes is generally also attributed to King Solomon, however, he is not mentioned anywhere by name. The idea that King Solomon was the author, is found in the introduction to the text. At some point before the Greek translation was made, someone added an introduction and conclusion to the text, in which the author is described as being the 'son of David,' and a 'King in Jerusalem.' The fourth book, Song of Songs, also called the Song of Solomon, is a song about King Solomon theoretically written in his time, circa 950 BC. The book does not list its author, but it was clearly written by a woman in love with Solomon. She is believed to have been referring to herself as a Shulamite in chapter 7, which suggests she was Abishag the Shulamite, King David's youngest concubine. The fifth book, Wisdom of Solomon was added to the Septuagint sometime between 250 and 132 BC, and while it was traditionally attributed to King Solomon, today scholars generally believed to have been composed in Greek, shortly before it was added to the Septuagint. The Wisdom of Solomon itself appears to have been redacted before the Greek translation, as the first half is about the spirit of wisdom, Sophia in Greek, who is credited with actually doing most of what the Lord (Iaw/Yahweh) was credited with doing in the Septuagint and Masoretic Texts, however, this changes abruptly to crediting the Lord in chapter 11, and Sophia disappeared entirely from the rest of the book. The sixth book, Psalms of Solomon, is also called Psalms of Salomon in many of the surviving manuscripts, although it is not clear why. At this time, it is universally agreed that the Psalms of Solomon is a pre-Christian work, as early Christian writers referred to it even though it is clearly not about the life of Jesus as described in the gospels. The seventh book, Testament of Solomon, was widely used by Christian and Gnostic astrologers in the first few centuries of the Christian era.
Author: Scriptural Research Institute
Publisher: Scriptural Research Institute
ISBN: 1989852408
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 277
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Book Description
King Solomon is arguably the most famous of all ancient Israelite kings, with several books in the Septuagint dedicated to him, or about him, or even by him, yet, to date, no archeological evidence for his life has been found. Additionally, the Testament of Solomon has survived from the Second Temple era which displays another side of King Solomon. The lifetime of King Solomon falls during the Third Intermediate Period (dark age) in Egyptian history, and therefore are no records of Solomon within the very limited Egyptian records from the time. Egyptologists believe the Kingdom of Egypt collapsed at the beginning of the time period, and by the time that Solomon would have lived, in the early-9th century BC, the king of Egypt only controlled the northern region, while the rest of Egypt was under the rule of the High Priest of Amen (Amun). The various books associated with Solomon that made it into the Septuagint, include 3rd Kingdoms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, Wisdom of Solomon, and Psalms of Solomon, als of which have been retranslated into modern English. The first book in this collection is 3rd Kingdoms, which tells the life of Solomon, likely from Ezra the Scribe's perspective, 500 years later. The book likely dates to before the reign of King Josiah, circa 700 BC, but is believed to have been redacted by Ezra the Scribe, or someone else in his era. The second book, Proverbs, also called Proverbs of Solomon, is generally attributed to King Solomon, who is explicitly referred to as the author of some of the proverbs. A number proverbs are known to have been copied from older collections of proverbs, most notably the Wisdom of Amenemope, which was apparently written by Amenemope son of Kanakht sometime before Pharaoh Akhenaten, circa 1350 BC. The third book, Ecclesiastes is generally also attributed to King Solomon, however, he is not mentioned anywhere by name. The idea that King Solomon was the author, is found in the introduction to the text. At some point before the Greek translation was made, someone added an introduction and conclusion to the text, in which the author is described as being the 'son of David,' and a 'King in Jerusalem.' The fourth book, Song of Songs, also called the Song of Solomon, is a song about King Solomon theoretically written in his time, circa 950 BC. The book does not list its author, but it was clearly written by a woman in love with Solomon. She is believed to have been referring to herself as a Shulamite in chapter 7, which suggests she was Abishag the Shulamite, King David's youngest concubine. The fifth book, Wisdom of Solomon was added to the Septuagint sometime between 250 and 132 BC, and while it was traditionally attributed to King Solomon, today scholars generally believed to have been composed in Greek, shortly before it was added to the Septuagint. The Wisdom of Solomon itself appears to have been redacted before the Greek translation, as the first half is about the spirit of wisdom, Sophia in Greek, who is credited with actually doing most of what the Lord (Iaw/Yahweh) was credited with doing in the Septuagint and Masoretic Texts, however, this changes abruptly to crediting the Lord in chapter 11, and Sophia disappeared entirely from the rest of the book. The sixth book, Psalms of Solomon, is also called Psalms of Salomon in many of the surviving manuscripts, although it is not clear why. At this time, it is universally agreed that the Psalms of Solomon is a pre-Christian work, as early Christian writers referred to it even though it is clearly not about the life of Jesus as described in the gospels. The seventh book, Testament of Solomon, was widely used by Christian and Gnostic astrologers in the first few centuries of the Christian era.
Author: Scriptural Research Institute
Publisher: Scriptural Research Institute
ISBN: 1990289169
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 229
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Book Description
In the mid-3rd century BC, King Ptolemy II Philadelphus of Egypt ordered a translation of the ancient Hebrew scriptures for the Library of Alexandria, which resulted in the creation of the Septuagint. The Book of Ezekiel is connected to Ezra and his Great Assembly in Jewish tradition, who apparently finished the book. It is one of the most standardized books, where the Greek and Hebrew translations are extremely similar. Both books contain some of the most obscure language, both Greek and Hebrew, containing many Aramaic loanwords. The Aramaic dialect is not consistent, with the early section, chapters 1 through 39, having Amorite and Assyrian loanwords, while the latter section, chapters 40 through 48, appears to have been written in Persian Imperial Aramaic. The early and later sections of Ezekiel also used different titles for God, and appear to have been written at different points in time, centuries apart. The early section is consistent with the historical records and was likely written during the late Assyrian and early Babylonian eras. The latter section appears to have been added during the time of Ezra, as the Persian Empire collapsed before the onslaught of the Macedonians, Greeks, Carthaginians, and Egyptians. The Book of Ezekiel is certainly one of the strangest books to survive from antiquity and has been the source of much speculation throughout centuries, by Jews, Christians, and atheists alike. Ezekiel's opening vision, of the flying machine, was the source of an entire branch of Jewish literature, Merkabah mysticism. The Septuagint uses the strange title Lord Lord through the first 39 chapters, before switching to the more common term Lord God for the later section of the book. This term could only have read Adon Ba'al in the Aramaic texts the Greeks translated Ezekiel from, as both adon and ba'al translate as 'lord.' This meaning that Ezekiel's god was Ba'al, the Canaanite god of thunder, whose holy mountain was Mount Zephon. Ezekiel describes his Lord Lord as being a thunder cloud, and refers to the god as coming from Zephon, which confirms that he did view the god as being Lord Ba'al. The Ba'al Cycle is a collection of stories about Ba'al Hadad, the supreme god of the Canaanite pantheon in the late bronze age. Unfortunately, the Texts that comprise the Ba'al Cycle are damaged, especially in the first section, where Hadad fights Yam to become Ba'al. In the subsequent section where the battle is discussed, Anat's defeat of the seven-headed monster Lotan is mentioned, however, this section is missing from the battle itself. Many tablets are believed to be lost from the epic, nevertheless, it is an important series of texts, as it allows us to see the other great religion of Canaan in the era that the early Israelite (later Samaritan and Jewish) religion was forming.
Author: Scriptural Research Institute
Publisher: Scriptural Research Institute
ISBN: 1990289193
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 54
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Book Description
Pertaining to Aqhat, also called the Danel Epic, or The Tale of Aqhat, is a collection of three tablets recovered from archaeological digs in the 1920s and 1930s at the ruins of Ugarit, a bronze-age city in northwest Syria, at the foot of the mountain Jebel Aqra on the modern Syrian-Turkish border. They date to Late-Bronze Era, specifically estimated to sometime around 1350 BC based on the mention of The Legend of King Keret on the colophon of the Tablet containing section 1. They tell part of the story of an ancient Canaanite king or judge named Danel, and his son Aqhat. The Ugaritic Danel is accepted as being the Danel that the anent Israelite prophet Ezekiel mentioned along with Noah and Job, suggesting all three have roots in the ancient religions of Canaan. Only part of the story of Danel and Aqhat has been found, on three tablets, all of which are broken, leaving a fragmentary story which is, unfortunately, is missing its ending. Danel is spelled as Dnỉl in Ugaritic, which is similar to the later Aramaic spelling of Dny'l, and essentially identical to the Hebrew name of Dn'l. The Greeks translated both the name of the ancient saga that Ezekiel mentioned, and the later Israelite prophet from after the time of Ezekiel as Daniêl at the Library of Alexandria, which has resulted in the Ugaritic king's name being rendered as Daniel in some translations. The three sections of text that survive on the tablets are all damaged, and were originally published in the order they were translated, but not the order that the story takes place in. As the texts are about Danel, the translations were named after him, resulting in the names 1 Danel, 2 Danel, and 3 Danel. However, while Danel may have been the protagonist, the original name of the story in the texts was Pertaining to Aqhat in Ugaritic, as the story was about Aqhat. This has resulted in the texts also being dubbed 1 Aqhat, 2 Aqhat, and 3 Aqhat, however, they were still not in the correct order, and so the revised translation in Hittite Myths and Instructions (1950) reordered them as Aqhat A (2 Danel/Aqhat), Aqhat B (3 Danel/Aqhat), and Aqhat C (1 Danel/Aqhat). This order has generally been followed ever since, and is the order followed here, however, the three sections of the texts are simply called sections 1, 2, and 3.
Author: Scriptural Research Institute
Publisher: Digital Ink Productions
ISBN: 199828879X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 65
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Book Description
The Shapira scrolls, also known as the Shapira manuscript or Moabite Deuteronomy, are a collection of leather strips supposedly discovered in the Arnon Valley of modern Jordan in the 1860s. While they were initially accepted as authentic by the Jewish antiquities dealer Moses Shapira, they were later discredited as forgeries by German and British biblical scholars. Since the discovery of the Dead Sea scrolls in the 1940s, there have been several scholars who have called into question the claims that the leather strips were a forgery, however, their whereabouts is unknown, and therefore no modern analysis of the leather strips is possible. Several reasons were given for the initial claims that the strips were a forgery, including the script, language, and content. The script is a form of Phoenician, similar to the Moabite script of the 800s BC, however, the language includes Imperial Aramaic terms not used until the Persian era, several centuries later. The content is not a match for any surviving translation of Deuteronomy, however, it does include many parallel statements. Some of the statements are somewhat heretical, however, they do seem similar to the beliefs of the Hasidian and Tobian sects reported to have been living in the region under Greek rule between 330 and 240 BC. Moses Shapira had previously been involved in the discovery and authentication of both authentic and fraudulent artifacts for the museums and universities of Europe, including five scrolls inscribed on leather sold in 1870, that were later assumed to be forgeries in 1884 and have subsequently disappeared. His biggest ‘swindle’ was thousands of fake Moabite artifacts labeled as Moabitica, which were apparently dug up at a site in the Arnon Valley of modern Jordan. These artifacts included stone heads, and clay vessels inscribed with Moabite text, and were dug up by both Shapira’s workers and German scholars, who later assumed Shapira’s people hid the artifacts there for them to find. The Altes Museum in Berlin bought the largest collection of these artifacts, at 1700, however, there were additional sales to other institutions and individuals across Europe, and the total number of artifacts is unknown.
Author: Scriptural Research Institute
Publisher: Scriptural Research Institute
ISBN: 1990289118
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 80
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Book Description
The Victorious Ba‘al is the first section of the Ba‘al Cycle, a collection of ancient stories about the Canaanite god Hadad. The term Ba‘al in the Ugaritic Texts, meaning ‘lord’ or ‘master,’ is the equivalent of the Akkadian belu, Canaanite b‘l, Sabaean b‘l, Aramaic ba‘la, Hebrew b‘l, Syriac ba'la, Arabic ba‘l, and Ge‘ez bal. The Ugaritic Texts are ancient tablets that were recovered from archaeological digs at the ruins of Ugarit, a bronze-age city in northwest Syria, at the foot of the mountain Jebel Aqra on the modern Syrian-Turkish border. The Ba‘al Cycle is generally divided into several sections, based on the groupings of the tablets that were discovered, however, this series of translations is divided into just two sections, Victorious Ba‘al, and Ba‘al Defeats Mot. These divisions are always subjective. Some translators divide the central section regarding the building of Ba‘al’s Temple on Mount Zaphon from the preceding battle with Yam. Others also separate out the intermediate section involving Ba‘al’s discussion with Anat, however, this series is divided based on the apparent shift in source material between the early section and the later section. The earliest section appears to be a translation from ancient Egyptian and includes Egyptian loanwords, as well as numerous references to the houses of the gods, which seems to be a reference to the system of decans used in Egypt from the Old Kingdom onward, to tell time at night. The 36 ancient Egyptian decans, or houses of stars, are accepted as the basis of pre-Babylonian astrological systems throughout Eurasia, including the systems used in India, China, and Japan. The traditional Canaanite system, while poorly documented was somewhat more complex, having 72 houses instead of 36. One was the House of El, and one was the House of Asherah, his main wife, and 70 belonging to their children, the Elim (gods), and Elohim (goddesses). The first section, Victorious Ba‘al, appears to be a later text, written after 1700 BC, when the gods changed places in the sky and destroyed the Minoan Civilization, in the view of the Minoans. In approximately 1700 BC, a massive series of earthquakes destroyed most of the Minoan cities and palaces. The earthquake marks the division between the Old Palace Period and the New Palace Period of Minoan architecture. At the time, there was a significant change in the sky, as the Bull stopped being the asterism that marked the northern vernal equinox, and the Ram replaced him. Unlike the Bull, the Ram was not on the ecliptic, the line in the sky that the sun and planets travel on relative to the earth, but above it. Below the ecliptic, and closer to it, was the Sea Monster, later called Cetus. The battle in the Victorious Ba‘al, was about the storm-god Hadad battling the sea-god Yam, to take over the kingship from the ram-god Attar, and appears to be about the struggle between these two gods to rule the earth after the bull god El had turned over his throne to the ram god Attar. That transition would have happened in circa 1700 BC, and so this text had to be written later than that.
Author: Scriptural Research Institute
Publisher: Scriptural Research Institute
ISBN: 198985270X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 110
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Book Description
In the mid-3rd century BC, King Ptolemy II Philadelphus of Egypt ordered a translation of the ancient Hebrew scriptures for the Library of Alexandria, which resulted in the creation of the Septuagint. The Letter of Aristeas, also called the Letter to Philocrates, was written by someone who claimed to have been part of the events that created the original translation of the Septuagint. It was treated as an authentic historical document by ancient Jewish historians, such as Aristobulus of Alexandria circa 150 BC, Philo of Alexandria circa 15 AD, and Josephus circa 93 AD. As Aristobulus quoted the Letter around 150 BC, the letter clearly predates Aristobulus by enough time for him to see it as an authentic document, which would imply prior to 200 BC. Since the time of Jerome, circa 400 BC, the Letter's authenticity has been debated. It was generally considered authentic until the 1500s when Jerome's views were repeated by the Spanish humanist Luis Vives. The Letter came under attack throughout the 1600s through the 1800s, and by the 1900s was viewed as a fictional document. Most of the arguments levied against it, were based on a lack of understanding of who Ptolemy II Philadelphus was, and why he would be depicted as worshiping the Jewish god. Latin critics did not understand the references to Plato's Cratylus and translated Δία as Dis (Jupiter), which would force the origin of the Letter to a later date after Rome had risen in power. In the time period this Letter is set, Carthage sill dominated the Western Mediterranean and Romans only ruled Italy. The reference to Δία was, in fact, part of a reference to Ζῆνα and Δία found in Plato's Cratylus, which was a reference to the Greek folktales about Zeus being the creator of life. References to the creator god in the letter were traditionally dismissed as being unlikely, as a Greek king would not have worshiped the Jewish god, however, this argument was based on a lack of understanding of Philadelphus. The Pithom Stele, found in the late 1800s shows that Philadelphus embedded himself in the Egyptian religions, portraying himself as the son of Atum, the creator god of ancient Egypt. The Pithom Stele was discovered at Tell el-Maskhuta, Egypt. It had originally been erected in the Temple of Atum at Pithom (Tell el-Maskhuta), circa 264 BC. The city of Pithom appears to have been moved at least once. Pharaoh Necho II seems to have founded a city of Pithom at the site of El Retaba eight miles west of Tell el-Maskhuta, circa 600 BC, when the Canal of the Pharaohs was dug linking the Nile to the Gulf of Suez. This canal was filled with sand and debris repeatedly and then cleared repeatedly. The Greek historian Herodotus, circa 430 BC claimed it was opened on the orders of the Persian King Darius, circa 490 BC. The Greek philosopher Aristotle, circa 330 BC, claimed the canal was never completed, meaning it was not open during his lifetime. It is generally accepted today that Ptolemy II Philadelphus reopened the canal during his lifetime, and built Heroöpolis, which was called Per-Atum (Pithom), including the Temple of Atum where the Pithom Stele was found.
Author: Scriptural Research Institute
Publisher: Scriptural Research Institute
ISBN: 1989852688
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 40
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Book Description
The story of the Voyage of Wenamen, also called the Report of Wenamen, or the Misadventures of Wenamen, is considered one of the earliest surviving adventure tales. Unlike many of their neighboring cultures, the Egyptians did not write historical narratives, the text must have started as an autobiography of Wenamen circa 1065 BC. The one partially surviving copy appears to have been excerpted from the original autobiography, copied for one of the Meshwesh (Berber) Pharaohs that ruled the late 21ˢᵗ Dynasty after Osorkon the Elder seized the throne in 992 BC. It appears as if only the sections about Canaan were copied, which suggests the Pharaoh in question was looking for information on Canaan, likely as a prelude to an invasion. The surviving text includes the beginning of Wenamen's voyage, but not the beginning of his biography, which would have included his titles and honors and the story of how he became a priest of Amen. The surviving text covers Wenamen's voyage from his departure from Thebes, through his stops in the Egyptian capital of Tanis, and the coastal Canaanite cities of Dor, Tyre, and Byblos, before his ship was blown off course to Cyprus, and the story abruptly ends. The section that covers the stop in Tyre is in the damaged section, in the middle of the story, and only survives in fragments. The abrupt ending of the story is clearly not the end of Wenamen's Biography as it does not include his return to Egypt, which must have taken place or his story would never have been known to the Egyptians.
Author: Scriptural Research Institute
Publisher: Scriptural Research Institute
ISBN: 1990289215
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 39
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Book Description
The Tale of the Shipwrecked Sailor is the earliest known surviving story of a shipwrecked sailor, and as such is the forerunner of many stories of nautical adventure encountering strange magical creatures, from Homer's Odyssey to Sinbad the Sailor. In a broader sense, it is generally considered the oldest piece of Egyptian fiction to survive to the present. Only one copy has been found to date, a single papyrus manuscript that resides at the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia, and is designated pHermitage 1115. The exact origin of the papyrus was not properly documented at the time, which was common for early Egyptologists, however, it was most likely recovered in Vladimir Golenishchev's 1884-85 expedition to the Wadi Hammamat, which was the major trade route between the Nile in southern Egypt and the port of El Qoseir on the Red Sea. The papyrus does appear to be complete, however, the story is not. It begins abruptly and ends abruptly, and suggests that it was excised from an older text. The story begins as a ship's captain is returning home from Nubia, on a failed mission of some kind, and then segues to the narrator telling the disinterested captain of a time when was shipwrecked on an island near Punt. It ends as abruptly as it begins, but the scribe confirms that this is the end of the story. Based on the content, it appears that the point of the papyrus was to copy the section of text dealing with the island and the 'Lord of Punt,' which was copied from a longer text in which the captain returned from his failed mission in Nubia, and told the king a story his crewman had told him to make up for the fact that he had nothing to report, but also downplayed the fantastic story by making it clear that it was his boring crewman's story, and not his. The reason for the extraction of the story, was probably because at the time, in the early Middle Kingdom era, the Egyptians were re-exploring their world, and trying to find the lands their ancestors had been trading with. This short work of probable fiction was, nevertheless, about the fabled land of Punt, which the Middle Kingdom reopened trade with during the 11ᵗʰ dynasty. Under the 11ᵗʰ dynasty's Mentuhotep III, an officer named Hannu reopened trade with Punt, however, it is unknown if he personally sailed there or simply organized the expedition. The most probable time for Imenyas pen-Imeny to have excised the story was before that first mission of Hannu, when the Egyptians were scouring their records for information on Punt. The fact that it was abandoned in the Wadi Hammamat, the route taken from the capital at Thebes to the Red Sea port of El Qoseir, seems to be a pretty strong indicator that the navigator did not see any value in the text, and did not even bother carrying it all the way to the harbor.
Author: Scriptural Research Institute
Publisher: Digital Ink Productions
ISBN: 1990289339
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 48
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Book Description
The life of Harkhuf is one of the better-documented lives from the era of the Old Kingdom era of Egyptian history. Harkhuf lived during the reigns of kings Merenre I and Pepi II of the 6ᵗʰ Dynasty, at the same time as the more famous Weni, whom he may have mentioned in his autobiography. Like Weni, he is primarily known from the inscriptions on his tomb, however, unlike Weni, he only seems to have had one tomb. On the front of his tomb were carved two inscriptions, one promising to intercede in the afterlife for those who prayed for him at his tomb, and the other was his autobiography, telling of his three expeditions into Nubia for King Merenre I. This appears to have been the original design of the tomb, as the front of the tomb was completely covered in the two inscriptions, however, like Weni, he later had more to add. Unlike Weni, Harkhuf did not build a second tomb, instead, he had one side of the tomb smoothed off so a letter to him from King Pepi II could be inscribed there, providing more information about the world he lived in. Harkhuf lived during the 6ᵗʰ Dynasty of the Old Kingdom, which would have been at the peak of the Old Kingdom’s international reach, but after the major pyramid-building feats of the 5ᵗʰ Dynasty were completed. Egypt had already built the tallest building in the world around a century before Harkhuf’s expeditions into Nubia, which would continue to be the tallest building in the world for thousands of years, until the completion of the Eiffel Tower in 1889. As Merenre I is only believed to have ruled for around 9 years, Harkhuf and Weni had to be active in Nubia at the same time. Weni’s Autobiography includes two lists of Nubian tribes, first a list of five tribes that fought in Canaan with the Egyptian army, and later a list of four tribes when he went to Nubia to dig five canals to open the region to trade via Egyptian barges. Nubia was the land to the south of Egypt, was Aswan and Elephantine at the First Cataract of the Nile. Elephantine, under its older Egyptian name Abu was mentioned as one of the mines that Weni visited, however, was considered Egyptian during the Old Kingdom, and marked the boundary between the two cultures. As only four of the five Nubian tribes that Weni mentioned are mentioned by Harkhuf, it allows both their routes through Nubia to be compared and tracked, establishing where the Nubian settlements were probably located.
Author: Scriptural Research Institute
Publisher: Scriptural Research Institute
ISBN: 1990289126
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 59
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Book Description
Ba‘al Defeats Mot, also called the Death of Ba‘al, is the final section of the Ba‘al Cycle, a collection of ancient stories about the Canaanite god Hadad. The term Ba‘al in the Ugaritic Texts, meaning ‘lord’ or ‘master,’ is the equivalent of the Akkadian belu, Canaanite b‘l, Sabaean bʿl, Aramaic baʿla, Hebrew bʿl, Syriac baʿla, Arabic baʿl, and Ge‘ez bal. The Ba‘al Cycle is generally divided into several sections, based on the groupings of the tablets that were discovered, however, this series of translations is divided into just two sections, Victorious Ba‘al, and Ba‘al Defeats Mot. These divisions are always subjective. Some translators divide the central section regarding the building of Ba‘al’s Temple on Mount Zaphon from the preceding battle with Yam. Others also separate the intermediate section involving Ba‘al’s discussion with Anat, however, this series is divided based on the apparent shift in source material between the early section and the later section. The earliest section, as well as the conclusion of the second section, appears to be a translation from ancient Egyptian and includes Egyptian loanwords, as well as numerous references to the houses of the gods, which seems to be a reference to the system of decans used in Egypt from the Old Kingdom onward, to tell time at night. The 36 ancient Egyptian decans, or houses of stars, are accepted as the basis of pre-Babylonian astrological systems throughout Eurasia, including the systems used in India, China, and Japan. The numerous Egyptian loanwords are accounted for as the Ugaritic text being a translation of an Egyptian work, which appears to be what the postscript was referring to. The main section of Ba‘al Defeats Mot appears to have been translated from an old Akkadian text that retold a Hurrian and Hattic story about two gods descending into the underworld. Many Akkadian, Hattic, and Hurrian loanwords are found in the text, which are generally missing from the earlier section, as well as the conclusion. The major exception being the messenger Ủgar, who was a Hurrian psychopomp, like the Canaanite Horon, and Greek Charon. As the city of Ugarit was named after him, this name clearly predates the text itself, and so it cannot be used to date the text. Nevertheless, does indicate that the city was originally a Hurrian settlement before becoming Semitic, which helps to explain why the older second section, appears to be a translation of an Akkadian retelling of a Hurrian story. Additionally, Luwian names are found in the second section, which places the origin of the Akkadian source text to sometime between when the Luwians settled in western Anatolia, generally dated to circa 2000 BC, and when the Hittites absorbed the Hattians around 1700 BC. As the text appears to have then been translated into Egyptian, before Ugaritic, it may trace the route the Hyksos took to Egypt, via the Luwian, Hattic, and Hurrian lands.
