Download or read book Dodeka Book of the Prophets written by Scriptural Research Institute and published by Scriptural Research Institute. This book was released on 1901 with total page 186 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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, as well as several other books of Jewish and Samaritan scriptures, including the Book of Enoch, Book of Job, Testaments of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and the Dodeka. The Dodeka was not part of the collection of texts the Jews fleeing Egypt carried with them from the Jewish Temple in Elephantine, and is therefore believed to have been translated into Greek later, circa 180 BC. It would eventually be added to the Septuagint as the Book of Dodeka circa 140 BC, and then much later be divided into its twelve constituent books by the early Christians in the 3rd-century AD, subsequently called the twelve minor prophets. The books comprising the Dodeka all date from between 900 and 500 BC, and represent the works of twelve ancient prophets, which in the original Greek translation, represented several different gods. These were not Jewish prophets, but Israelite prophets, mostly living the age before King Josiah banned the old gods, in approximately 625 BC. Most of the books in the Dodeka were written before King Josiah's reforms. The books of Hosea, Amos, and Micah are set during the 8th-century BC, when the kingdom of Samaria fought a series of wars against its more powerful northern neighbor Assyria, ultimately being conquered by the Neo-Assyrian Empire circa 722 BC. The books of Joel, Obadiah, and Jonah follow, although their exact settings are not clear. The books of Nahum, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah follow, set in the 7th-century BC, as the Kingdom of Judea struggled for its survival between the powers of the time, Assyria to the north, Egypt to the south, and Babylon to the east, ultimately falling to the Neo-Babylonian Empire circa 586 BC. There is a gap in the prophets during the era when Babylon ruled Judea, and they continue with the books of Haggai, and the first half of Zachariah, set in the late-6th-century, after the Persians have conquered the Babylonian Empire. Combining the various Elohim that are appear to have been the text the Greeks translated, including Shaddai (Shaddayin), On (Aven), Dagon, Tirath (Tirosh), Yitzhar, Reshef (Blight), Mot, Hades (Sheol), and Abaddon (Destruction), Ba'al Hadad, Ba'al Hammon, Qetesh Asherah, Sydyk, and Shemesh, it strongly suggests that the text was heavily edited in the Hasmonean era when Yahweh Sabaoth replaced Lord El. Unfortunately, the existing Dead Sea Scrolls shed little light on the situation as they date to the era the edits would have taken place, but are in the script that should only show the edited version. Nevertheless, they are so damaged almost none of the questions about the differences between the Dodeka and Masoretic Texts could be resolved, even if they were in the Canaanite script.

Download or read book Dodeka written by Scriptural Research Institute and published by . This book was released on 2020-09-14 with total page 230 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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, as well as several other books of Jewish and Samaritan scriptures, including the Book of Enoch, Book of Job, Testaments of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and the Dodeka. The Dodeka was not part of the collection of texts the Jews fleeing Egypt carried with them from the Jewish Temple in Elephantine, and is therefore believed to have been translated into Greek later, circa 180 BC. It would eventually be added to the Septuagint as the Book of Dodeka circa 140 BC, and then much later be divided into its twelve constituent books by the early Christians in the 3rd-century AD, subsequently called the twelve minor prophets. The books comprising the Dodeka all date from between 900 and 500 BC, and represent the works of twelve ancient prophets, which in the original Greek translation, represented several different gods. These were not Jewish prophets, but Israelite prophets, mostly living the age before King Josiah banned the old gods, in approximately 625 BC.Most of the books in the Dodeka were written before King Josiah's reforms. The books of Hosea, Amos, and Micah are set during the 8th-century BC, when the kingdom of Samaria fought a series of wars against its more powerful northern neighbor Assyria, ultimately being conquered by the Neo-Assyrian Empire circa 722 BC. The books of Joel, Obadiah, and Jonah follow, although their exact settings are not clear. The books of Nahum, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah follow, set in the 7th-century BC, as the Kingdom of Judea struggled for its survival between the powers of the time, Assyria to the north, Egypt to the south, and Babylon to the east, ultimately falling to the Neo-Babylonian Empire circa 586 BC. There is a gap in the prophets during the era when Babylon ruled Judea, and they continue with the books of Haggai, and the first half of Zachariah, set in the late-6th-century, after the Persians have conquered the Babylonian Empire.Combining the various Elohim that are appear to have been the text the Greeks translated, including Shaddai (Shaddayin), On (Aven), Dagon, Tirath (Tirosh), Yitzhar, Reshef (Blight), Mot, Hades (Sheol), and Abaddon (Destruction), Ba'al Hadad, Ba'al Hammon, Qetesh Asherah, Sydyk, and Shemesh, it strongly suggests that the text was heavily edited in the Hasmonean era when Yahweh Sabaoth replaced Lord El. Unfortunately, the existing Dead Sea Scrolls shed little light on the situation as they date to the era the edits would have taken place, but are in the script that should only show the edited version. Nevertheless, they are so damaged almost none of the questions about the differences between the Dodeka and Masoretic Texts could be resolved, even if they were in the Canaanite script.

Download or read book The Old Testament written by Rolf Rendtorff and published by Fortress Press. This book was released on 1991-01-01 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Old Testament is a collection of writings which came into being over a period of more than a thousand years in the history of the people of Israel and which reflect the life of the people in this period. Therefore, there is a reciprocal relationship between the writings or "books" of the Old Testament and the life of Israel in its history. The understanding of the texts presupposes insights into the historical context and the development of the life of Israelite society, while at the same time the texts themselves are the most important, indeed for the most part the only, source for it. This "Introduction" attempts to take account of this reciprocal relationship. The first part deals with the history of Israel. However, its approach differs from most accounts of this history. It takes the Old Testament texts themselves as a starting point and first of all outlines the picture of historical developments and associations which the texts present. An attempt is then made, on this basis, to reconstruct historical developments by introducing material from outside the Bible. This method of working leads to close connections between the second and third parts, because it has to take account of the nature and original purpose of the texts and their function within the biblical books as they are now. The second part attempts to present the texts collected in the Old Testament as expressions of the life of Israel. The third part discusses the books of the Old Testament in their present form.

Download or read book Introduction to the Prophets written by Leclerc, Thomas L. and published by Paulist Press. This book was released on 2017 with total page 420 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Now in a second edition, this volume introduces college students and adult learners to biblical stories about the prophets as well as the theology and teachings of each of the prophetic books in the Bible. There are discussion questions at the end of each chapter.

Download or read book Septuagint Micah written by Scriptural Research Institute and published by Scriptural Research Institute. This book was released on 2020-07-25 with total page 39 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Book of Micah is generally considered one of the older surviving books of the Hebrew Scriptures, with most scholars dating it to before the Torah was compiled, or at least heavily redacted in the time of King Josiah. Most scholars accept that Micah was written by a prophet called Micah between 737 and 969 BC, who was most likely from the town of Moresheth in the Kingdom of Judea or the city-state of Gath, in the modern Palestinian West Bank. His world was very different from the later Kingdom of Judea that emerged in the 2nd-century BC, as the Israelites of his time were still polytheistic, worshiping the Canaanite Elohim, as well as statues of Iaw (Masoretic Yahweh), the God the Jews and Samaritans would later worship. The Book of Micah is believed to have been translated into Greek around 180 BC with other Twelve Prophets, however, there is a significant difference between the Septuagint's and Masoretic version of the Book of Micah. The Masoretic Version is the Book of Micah which copied by a group of Jewish scribes called the Masorites between 400 and 1000 AD. The major difference between the Books of Micah is the god that Amos was the prophet of. The Masoretic version refers to his god as Iaw (Yahweh) Sabaoth, however, the Septuagint's version of Micah does not mention Iaw Sabaoth, instead, referring to God as Lord God (κύριος ὁ θεὸς), or the Lord Almighty (κύριος ὁ παντοκράτωρ) which in the Septuagint's Book of Job was a translation of Shaddai. In the Septuagint, Micah's god was repeatedly named as 'Lord God' (κύριος ὁ θεὸς), which translated back into Hebrew would be 'Ba'al El,' and once Lord Almighty (κύριος ὁ παντοκράτωρ), which translated back into Hebrew would be 'Ba'al Shaddai.' The term pantocratôr (παντοκράτωρ) was the translation used in other books of the Septuagint for Shaddai (שדי). For example, the Book of Job, which was translated into Greek between 190 and 180 BC, the names Shaddi shows up 33 times in the Masoretic Texts and is translated as Almighty (παντοκράτωρ) in the Septuagint.

Download or read book Book of Shadrach written by Scriptural Research Institute and published by Scriptural Research Institute. This book was released on with total page 41 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Book of Shadrach appears to be the oldest book of the ancient Samarian prophets, written between 880 and 870 BC. The Book of Shadrach predicts the fall of the Egyptian and Assyrian Empires, meaning they must have still been around at the time, as well as the coming of the prophet ‘Elijah the Tishbite,’ who was the prophet Elijah the Masoretic books of Kings and Diḇrê Hayyāmîm (Septuagint’s 3rd and 4th Kingdoms, and 2nd Paralipomenon), and whose life is dated to between 900 and 849 BC. The Book of Shadrach also provides a general description of the state of Edom as having been defeated by the Judeans. This matches the political reality of Elijah’s time, when Edom was subject to the Kingdom of Judah, between 930 and 870 BC. Edom was a kingdom southeast of Judah from at least the 1200s BC until 125 BC when the Hasmonean dynasty conquered the kingdom. Edom was recorded as being a dependency of the Kingdom of Judah between 930 and 870 BC, but then rebelled against Judah, and does not appear to have been conquered outright by the Judeans again until the Hasmonean dynasty. At some point before the Greeks conquered the Persians, the Book of Shadrach became part of the Twelve, or as Christians would later call them, the books of the minor prophets. These books span several hundred years of Israelite history, and generally identify the time period each book is set in by mentioning the king who was ruling the land at the time. The earliest, other than Shadrach, is the Book of Hosea, who lived “in the days of Uzziah, and Jotham, and Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, and in the days of Jeroboam II, son of Jehoash, king of Israel,” who ruled the Judah between approximately 783 and 687 BC. These kings were also recorded in the Assyrian records from the era, and are considered to be historical people, while King Jeroboam II, the son of Jehoash, ruled Samaria (Northern Kingdom of Israel) for 41 years sometime between 793 and 746 BC. The most recently composed of the twelve books to identify a ruler were the books of Haggai and Zachariah, both set in the “second year of King Darius.” King Darius I was the third ‘King of Kings’ (Emperor) of the Achaemenid Persian Empire, reigning from 522 BC until his death in 486 BC, which would place the date of Haggai and Zachariah to circa 520 BC. As the Book of Shadrach is set earlier than the rest of the twelve, it should have been the first of the twelve, but seems to have always been placed at the end. The Greek translation of the Dodeka, made at the library of Alexandria circa 190 BC, and the Masoretic Texts which were copied by the Masorites between 400 and 1000 AD, use different sequences for the twelve books, however, in both cases Shadrach was at the end. In both cases, the Book of Shadrach has also been split into two books, the seconds half of the Book of Zachariah and the Book of Malachi. As the Book of Zachariah is set during the Persian Era, in the second year of Darius, which was 520 BC, this book cannot have also been written centuries earlier, when Egypt and Assyria were enemies of Samaria, and Judah ruled Edom. The Book of ‘Malachi’ is even more confusing, as it is anonymous. The name Malachi is simply a corruption of the Hebrew and Canaanite word for ‘messengers.’ The fact that the Book of ‘Malachi’ is anonymous, has been commented on for more than two thousand years, however, most modern Christian churches choose to accept the prophet that wrote it had the remarkably unlikely name of ‘Messengers’ rather than admit they don’t know who wrote the book. It is unclear why Shadrach was misplaced among the twelve, however, appears to have been in its current position, divided between Zachariah and Malachi by the beginning of the Greek rule of Judea, suggesting it happened during the Persian era.

Download or read book Septuagint Jonah written by Scriptural Research Institute and published by Scriptural Research Institute. This book was released on 2020-08-02 with total page 39 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Book of Jonah is generally considered by scholars to be fictional tale written in the Persian era, however, the version in the Septuagint indicated the story likely dates back to the Assyrian era, between 720 and 612 BC. There are several reasons why Jewish, Christian, and secular scholars have questioned the book's origin, not the least of which is the fact that Jonah spent several days inside some sea creature, and survived. As such, it reads more like a fictional tale, such as the Words of Ahikar, and the book of Tobit which was connected to Ahikar by its author. The concept of free will is central to all Judeo-Christian religions. Although refusal to follow God's directions will lead to some kind of negative consequences, the right nevertheless exists. However, in the book of Jonah, Jonah had no free will and was forced to go to Nineveh, the capital of the Assyrian Empire, to tell the Assyrians that the Jewish God was going to destroy their city, three days after the prophecy. Naturally, no one would be enthusiastic about being told to do that, however, in the Greek translation, the issue is compounded by the fact that Jonah is a slave. In the Masoretic Texts, the expression 'Slave of a master I am' was replaced with 'Hebrew I am,' which makes no sense, as he was talking to the sailors of the ship he boarded in Jaffa, who would have known he was a Hebrew. Furthermore, the reaction of the Assyrians when Jonah reached Nineveh is contrary to all recorded and archeological evidence about the Assyrians. The Assyrians considered the god of the people they conquered to also be conquered by their God Ashur. Unless Jonah was a prophet of Ashur, they simply wouldn't have cared at all about what he had to say, and as he was Samaritan, they would have likely captured him as a runaway slave. However, the Book of Jonah reports that they immediately accepted the prophecy and fasted, even forbidding their animals from eating. This fasting made Jonah's god change his mind, and so the city was not destroyed after three days. This issue of why the Assyrians would have cared about Jonah's prophecy has driven much of the debate about the historical dating of the texts, and as it appears in the Masoretic Text, it is clearly a much later fictional tale added to the other 11 minor prophets for some reason. The earlier Greek translation indicates that Jonah's god was not Yahweh, the Hasmonean national god, but the Canaanite god Shamayim, whose name is still retained in the Masoretic texts, but misinterpreted as meaning the 'skies' as in the Masoretic Jonah, his god has already been identified as the geographically challenged Yahweh. The fact is, if Jonah went to Nineveh and stated he was a prophet of Shamayim, everyone, including the king would have paid attention, as described in the Book of Jonah, as the national god of Assyria, Asshur, had been transformed into Ansar, meaning 'whole sky,' around the time that Samaria had been conquered. As Jonah repeatedly claimed to be worshiping his master's god, and his master would have been an Assyrian, it is clear that he was referring to Ansar (Ashur) when he said Shamayim, the Canaanite equivalent.

Download or read book Amos Among the Prophets written by Robert B. Coote and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2005-01-26 with total page 145 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Robert Coote describes the stages of growth of the book of Amos, discussing the process of the book's gradual formation. Chapter One introduces Coote's approach, rationale, and method for his analysis. Chapter Two deals with the oracles of doom, basically the oral legacy of the prophet himself. Chapter Three shows how the words of Amos were reactualized and composed in their seventh century setting. Chapter Four comes to grips with the book of Amos as a theological whole, as it now stands in the biblical canon. This book also serves as a useful resource for understanding pre-exilic prophecy because of the many similarities between Amos's message and other prophetic traditions which Coote highlights.

Download or read book Prophecy and the Prophets of the Old Testament written by John F. A. Sawyer and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 1987 with total page 184 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this original and authoritative study, Sawyer explores the work of biblical prophets and Jewish and Christian interpretations of prophecy.

Download or read book Septuagint Habakkuk written by Scriptural Research Institute and published by Scriptural Research Institute. This book was released on 2020-08-08 with total page 54 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Book of Habakkuk is generally considered one of the older surviving books of the Hebrew Scriptures, with most scholars dating it to before the Torah was written, or at least heavily redacted in the time of King Josiah. Most scholars accept that Habakkuk was written by a prophet called Habakkuk around 612 BC, however, virtually nothing is known about him. He was also in the Septuagint's Book of Daniel, however, was cut from the Masoretic version. In the Septuagint's Book of Daniel, Habakkuk was carried by an angel to Babylon to help Daniel, which, although the text was cut from the Masoretic version has influenced the view of Habakkuk's life. His world was very different from the later Kingdom of Judea that emerged in the 2nd-century BC, as the Israelites of his time were still polytheistic, worshiping the Canaanite gods, as well as statues of Iaw (Masoretic Yahweh), the God the Jews and Samaritans would later worship. The Book of Habakkuk is considered unique among the books of the bible, as Habakkuk openly questions his Lord's actions, which in the Masoretic version of the book, means he is questioning God. In the Septuagint's version, his Lord was differentiated from God, and prior to the Hasmonean redaction, appears to have been Qetesh, which was the title of Asherah, the wife of El and mother of Yahweh in the early Israelite religion. Habakkuk describes the rise of the Chaldeans, who, at the time ruled Babylon, and this is accepted as a reference to the rise of the Neo-Babylonian Empire. The Neo-Babylonian empire rose as the Neo-Assyrian empire collapsed, beginning with the revolt of Babylon in 626 BC, and the coronation of Nabopolassar as the king of independent Babylon. In 612 BC, the combined forces of Babylon, the Persians, Medes, and Scythians laid waste to Nineveh, effectively ending the Neo-Assyrian Empire. This is the era that Habakkuk's life is generally dated to, as the Chaldeans (Babylon) was rising, however, this is not the only era suggested. The battles between the Babylonians and the remnants of the Assyrian forces, continued until the Babylonians captured Haran in 609 BC, and their war against the Assyrians ally, Egypt, continued until the Battle of Carchemish in 605 BC when the Babylonians effectively defeated the Egyptians. After 605 BC, the Babylonians dominated Mesopotamia, Syria, and Samaria as far south as the border of Egypt, while the small Kingdom of Judah remained effectively landlocked between Babylonian-occupied Samaria, Amman, Moab, and Edom. In the decades that followed, the Babylonians occupied these smaller kingdoms, destroying the city of Jerusalem in 587 BC, and took the leaders of Judah to Babylonia, where they remained until the Neo-Babylonian empire fell to the Persians decades later.

Download or read book Septuagint Daniel Chisianus Version written by Scriptural Research Institute and published by Scriptural Research Institute. This book was released on 1901 with total page 230 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Old Greek translation was the version originally in the Septuagint, however, the authenticity and accuracy of any and all versions of the Book of Daniel have always been in doubt. The Codex Chisianus (also known as the Chigi Manuscript 88) is accepted as being the closest to the Old Greek translation. It claims to be a copy of the Christian scholar Origen of Alexandria's recension from circa 240 AD, and as the Syriac translation of Origen's recension from 616 and 617 AD, the Syro-Hexaplar Codex, is virtually identical, they are both accepted as Origen's work. Origen rejected both the shorter version of Daniel found in the Hebrew and Aramaic translation that the Jews of his day were using, as well as Theodotion's translation, which was largely based on the Hebrew and Aramaic text, and claimed the Old Greek translation was the closest to the original text of Daniel. In 1931, a damaged papyrus from the 3rd-century AD was found, now known as Papyrus 967, which contains a Greek translation of Daniel that is similar to the Codex Chisianus and Syro-Hexaplar Codex's version of Daniel, but does not seem to be Origen's work, supporting his recension as being the 'Old Greek' version. While the content of the Codex Chisianus, Syro-Hexaplar Codex, and Papyrus 967 are essentially the same, Papyrus 967 deviates from the others by having Daniel's visions found in chapters 7 and 8 earlier in the book, before Masoretic chapter 5, likely moved due to confusion over the identities of the two kings named Belshazzar. This translation follows the oldest documented chapter structure of Daniel, starting with the chapter of Susanna, and incorporating the Old Greek versions of Masoretic chapters 7 and 8 earlier in the book, as found in Papyrus 967. Overall, Daniel may be one of the most abused of the ancient authors, as several authors appear to have added to or redacted his work during the Persian Era. The surviving copies of Daniel are such a mess that they are generally dismissed as a work of fiction by most secular historians that research them, as they do not correspond to any version of Babylonian, Median, and Persian history, although being set in the Neo-Babylonian and Early Persian Eras. Ironically, the early sections of the Book of Daniel could only have been written in the Neo-Babylonian and early Persian eras, as the redactions that took place to the earlier sections of text only make sense in the political reality of the Early-Persian Empire.

Download or read book Septuagint 1 Paralipomenon written by Scriptural Research Institute and published by Digital Ink Productions. This book was released on 1901 with total page 111 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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. The creation of the Septuagint resulted from this order. It is generally accepted that there were several versions of the ancient Hebrew and Samaritan scriptures before the translation of the Septuagint. The two books of the Paralipomena were translated into Greek and added to the Septuagint around 180 BC after a large number of refugees fled from the war in Judea and settled in Egypt. The two books of the Paralipomena were one book in the Masoretic Texts: the book of Divrei-hayyamim. Subsequent Latin translations were renamed 1ˢᵗ and 2ⁿᵈ Chronikon by Jerome in the 5ᵗʰ century AD. Subsequent English translations of the Old Testament labeled these books as 1ˢᵗ and 2ⁿᵈ Chronicles. The term Paralipomena, which means ‘things left out,’ is similar to the Hebrew name Divrei-hayyamim, which means ‘things in the days.’ The books are a collection of texts from various eras of Israelite history, spanning the era of the old Israelite Kingdoms, circa 1000 BC, through the Persian conquest, of circa 539 BC. Scholars have debated the origin of the books throughout their history, and there is no consensus within Rabbinical literature, Christian literature, or modern scholarship. The general Rabbinical view is that the two books of Paralipomena were written by one author, as Divrei-hayyamim, and then translated into Greek. The dominant early Christian view was that the books were written by Ezra the Scribe, circa 350 BC, however, this view was generally abandoned in Western Europe during the Protestant Reformation. Modern scholarly analysis has no consensus, however, the books do themselves indicate the eras they were compiled, nevertheless, the authors remain unknown. Based on the references within 1ˢᵗ Paralipomenon, the book was compiled sometime after 732 BC, when Tiglath-Pileser III deported the Reubenites, Gadites, and the people of Manasseh to other regions of the Assyrian Empire. The surviving Hebrew text of Divrei-hayyamim does, however, contain a reference to the Temple in Jerusalem as the ‘Temple of the Gods’, which means the original text of the book has to predate King Josiah’s reforms of circa 625 BC, and likely predates King Hezekiah’s similar reforms decades earlier. Both Hezekiah and Josiah are recorded as removing the idols of the gods from the temple, which had by all accounts been in the temple since it was built by King Solomon. The books of Paralipomena differ slightly from the later Masoretic book of Divrei-hayyamim, although the three are generally similar. In 200 BC the Greek Kingdom of Syria under the Seleucid Dynasty took Judea from Egypt and began an effort to Hellenize the Judeans, which included erecting a statue of Zeus in the Second Temple in Jerusalem and effectively banning traditional Judaism. This Hellenizing activity was partially successful, creating the Sadducee faction of Judaism, however, it also led the Maccabean Revolt in 165 BC, which itself created the independent Kingdom of Judea. This Kingdom had a tenuous alliance with the Roman Republic until General Pompey conquered Syria into the Roman Republic in 69 BC. Pomey’s goal was to liberate Greek-speaking communities in the Middle East that had fallen under the rule of non-Greeks when the Seleucids Syrian Empire had collapsed, and he carved up Judea, and Edom to the east, placing Greek-speaking cities under the protection of the Roman province of Syria. He also liberated several smaller communities that had been occupied by Judea, granting them self-government, including Ashdod, Yavne, Jaffa, Dora, Marissa, and Samaria.

Download or read book Ugaritic Texts Pertaining to Keret written by Scriptural Research Institute and published by Scriptural Research Institute. This book was released on 1901 with total page 49 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Pertaining to Keret, also called the Legend of Keret, or the Epic of Keret 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 name of the scribe Elimelek, who also transcribed the Ba‘al Cycle for King Niqmaddu of Ugarit. The story itself is set much earlier, and in a land far to the east of Ugarit, likely along the Khabur River in eastern modern Syria, and the Tur Abdin highlands of southeastern modern Turkey. They tell parts of the story of an ancient Hurrian king named Keret, and his wife Hurriya, unfortunately, the tablets are quite damaged, and there were probably once more tablets to the story. The story begins and ends abruptly, suggesting that there was at least one tablet before and after the surviving tablets.Only part of the story of Keret and Hurriya has been found, on three tablets, all of which are broken, leaving a fragmentary story which is, unfortunately, is missing its beginning and ending, and there may have also been another tablet between Tablets 2 and 3. The surviving story begins with King Keret of Beth Khubur having already lost everything other than his throne. In some respects, the story has parallels to the Book of Job, both at the beginning and at the end, with a parallel to Homer’s Illiad in the middle. It begins with his entire family having died, and him being the only surviving son of his mother. Also, his wife and children have died, although the details of how everyone died have not survived. The Bull god El came to Keret in his dreams and told him to march his army to the land of Ủdủm, and attack the towns and villages, capturing the women that worked the fields and as woodcutters. Then to wait seven days until the king of Ủdủm agreed to his terms, and surrendered his eldest daughter to Keret to become his new wife. While it is not entirely clear where the story is set, the names Beth Khubur and Ủdủm suggest the Khabur River tributary of the Euphrates River, in eastern modern Syria. Beth Khubur is a combination of two words, bt, meaning house or temple in Canaanite, and ḫbr, originally the Sumerian word for river, which was adopted by the Akkadians as the name for two major tributaries of the Euphrates and Tigris rivers. The Khabur which was a tributary for the Euphrates has four major sources, three of which are in the Tur Abdin highlands of southeastern Turkey, which is likely what was being referred to as Ủdủm in the story.

Download or read book Ugaritic Texts Ba al Defeats Mot written by Scriptural Research Institute and published by Scriptural Research Institute. This book was released on 1901 with total page 59 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.

Download or read book Greek Apocalypse of Ezra written by Scriptural Research Institute and published by Digital Ink Productions. This book was released on 2020-04-06 with total page 44 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the early centuries of the Christian era, several texts called the Apocalypse of Ezra were in circulation among Jews, Christians, Gnostics, and related religious groups. The original is believed to have been written in Judahite or Aramaic and is commonly known as the Jewish Apocalypse of Ezra, as Ezra is believed to have been an ancient Judahite. This translation is referred to as the Judahite Apocalypse of Ezra, as the book has nothing to do with modern Judaism. This version of the Apocalypse was translated into Greek sometime before 200 AD and circulated widely within the early Christian churches. This prophet Ezra is not the scribe Ezra from the books of Ezra, but a prophet named Shealtiel who lived a couple of centuries earlier. In the apocalypse, he is called Ezra by the angel Uriel, which translates a ‘helper’ or ‘assistant.’ In the book, it is claimed that the prophet Ezra wrote 904 books, and its popularity seems to have inspired a number of Christian-era Apocalypses of Ezra, presumably beginning with the ‘Latin’ Apocalypse of Ezra which claimed to be the ‘second book of the prophet Ezra.’ The ‘second apocalypse’ was strangely attributed to Ezra the Scribe, and not the earlier exilarch Shealtiel, suggesting the author of the second apocalypse was not entirely familiar with the first apocalypse. The Greek Apocalypse of Ezra is a third Apocalypse of Ezra, which has only survived in two copies, both dating to before the 9th century. It is a separate text from the Judahite or Latin Apocalypses of Ezra and appears to be a Christian-era composite of various Ezra and Shadrach related materials. There is no consensus of when the Greek Apocalypse of Ezra was written, however, it is a Christian era Apocalypse, which refers to several Christian Apostles in heaven along with the Israelite Patriarchs. This Apocalypse uses a very inconsistent writing style and switches constantly between first-person and third-person as if it is a composite of material that originated in various earlier Ezra material. Some of the content repeats content found in the Judahite Apocalypse of Ezra, however, the bulk of the material is unique, describing Ezra’s journey through the sky (Heaven) and the underworld (Tartarus).

Download or read book Septuagint Isaiah written by Scriptural Research Institute and published by Scriptural Research Institute. This book was released on 1901 with total page 147 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: According to the Book of Isaiah, he lived during the reigns of several Judahite Kings including Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, spanning the late 700s and early 600s BC, working as a prophet for possibly more than 80 years. The Jerusalem and Babylonian Talmuds both report that he was killed by King Manasseh, who ruled between 687 and 643 BC, however, the stories differ somewhat. In the older Jerusalem Talmud Gemara, complied between 350 and 400 AD, reports that Isaiah was killed when a tree he was hiding in was cut down on the orders of King Manasseh, while the later Babylonian Talmud Gemara, complied between 400 and 500 AD, reports that King Manasseh had Isaiah sawed in half, not the tree he was hiding in. In both cases, King Manasseh ordered the execution of Isaiah as a heretic because he had claimed to have seen God, while in the Torah Moses claimed no one could see God and live. This seems inconsistent with the reports in 4th Kingdoms (Masoretic Kings), in which Manasseh was a polytheist, as polytheists could see at least some of their gods, such as the sun, moon, and earth. Therefore, it is more likely that if Manasseh did have Isaiah executed, it was because Isaiah denounced his rule of Judah, as Isaiah’s final chapters are clearly a denouncement of Judah, and could not have taken place before Manasseh’s time. The stories of how Isaiah died in the Torahs were likely copied from the earlier Lives of the Prophets, generally dated to the 1st-century AD, which also was later used by Muslim scholars who recognize Isaiah (أشعياء) as a prophet even though he was not mentioned in the Quran or Hadith. As Manasseh could not have executed Isaiah until after the death of Hezekiah, who Isaiah was closely allied with, Isiah could not have been killed until after 687 BC and must have been killed before 643 BC. It is reported in Rabbinical literature that Isaiah was the maternal grandfather of Manasseh, which, if true, would mean Isaiah was the father of Manasseh’s mother Hephzibah, and thereby father-in-law of King Hezekiah, which would support Isaiah’s claim to have been a major prophet in the time of Hezekiah’s father Ahaz’s reign, between 732 and 716 BC. Therefore his rise to prominence as a prophet must have taken place during the reign of King Jotham, circa 742 and 735 BC, and likely his predecessor king Uzziah between 783 and 742 BC. This indicates that Isaiah was in his 90s or older when Manasseh had him executed, which makes his climbing a tree unlikely and supports the alternate report, that Manasseh had him sawed in half, and not a tree he was hiding in. The book of 4th Kingdoms reports that Manasseh killed supporters of his father Hezekiah’s religious reforms, which would have undoubtedly included Isaiah, and therefore, while the execution of Isaiah is not itself found in the Septuagint or Masoretic Tanakh, it is implied. Archaeological evidence has shown that at the beginning of the era of Isaiah, the Kingdoms of Samaria and Judah went through considerable changes. When Uzziah reigned in Jerusalem, the larger Kingdom of Samaria to the north was the wealthiest and most populous nation in Canaan and had occupied the kingdoms of Aram and Hama to the north, giving the Samarians a dominant position in the region, occupying most of modern northern Israel, the northern Palestinian West Bank, eastern Lebanon, and western Syria. At the time, the coastal cities of Sidon and Tyre continued to be independent, as well as Judah to the south, and Moab, Ammon, and Edom to the southeast. This era of wealth and prosperity was suddenly and dramatically ended by a magnitude 8 earthquake circa 760 BC, which would have caused aftershocks for up to a year. Entire cities were leveled, and the Dead Sea fault Zone was radically altered, causing a drop in the water levels and a general drying of the Arabah region to the south of the Dead Sea.

Download or read book Septuagint 2 Maccabees written by Scriptural Research Institute and published by Scriptural Research Institute. This book was released on 1901 with total page 82 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 2ⁿᵈ Maccabees claims to be an abridged version of Jason of Cyrene's now lost five-volume version of Maccabees. Jason's books of the Maccabees were likely composed earlier than 1ˢᵗ Maccabees, as the story ends decades earlier, and contains many references to Sabaoth in the form of Dionysus which are missing from the 1ˢᵗ Maccabees. While 1ˢᵗ Maccabees is a very secular version of the events that lead to the creation of the Hasmonean kingdom, and was, therefore, almost certainly composed by a Sadducee, 2ⁿᵈ Maccabees claims that Judas the Hammer, the protagonist of both 1ˢᵗ and 2ⁿᵈ Maccabees was a Hasidean, suggesting that either Jason of Cyrene, or whoever abridged his work, was a Hasidean. 1ˢᵗ Maccabees mentioned the Hasideans joining Judas' forces, but did not claim he was one. The Hasideans were one of two Judean sects that were mentioned in the various books of the Maccabees whose relationship to other sects is unclear. Some scholars have theorized that they may be the precursors to the Pharisees. 2ⁿᵈ Maccabees appears to be an anti-Phrygian work, although it is not clear if this was added by the author, or found in Jason's earlier work. The book is the only clear reference to the origin of Sabaoth within the Judean sects, as the god appears in the book, under his Greek name Dionysus, while Philip the Phrygian is in charge of the Temple in Jerusalem. References to the Judean god Sabaoth appear at this point in the Greek language literature, either transliterated directly in the form of Sabaoth or translated into Greek as Dionysus. While there is a similar word in the ancient Israelite scriptures, it as translated as ṣbʾwt, meaning 'armies,' when the Hebrew translations were made under the Hasmoneans, which is likely a direct translation of the Aramaic term. This god Sabaoth was considered at the time, to be the same god as the Phrygian god Sabazios, who the Greeks also considered a local variant of Dionysus. The fact that Dionysus was the Greek name of Sabaoth and Sabazios was recorded by the many Classical Era scholars, including Strabo, Diodorus Siculus, Tacitus, Lydus, Cornelius Labeo, and Plutarch.