Aramaic-Az

                                             

  ARAMAIC A general term used to cover a group of Semitic dialects closely rela-

          ted to Hebrew and even more closely related to each other.   Several chap-

          ters worth of Aramaic is found in the books of Ezra, and Daniel, and a 

          verse in Jeremiah, as well as isolated words elsewhere.   In the New Tes-

          tament, such phrases as alitha cumi, Marana tha, and Eloi, Eloi, lama 

          sabach thani are in contemporary Aramaic, and much of what is written in 

          Greek was translated literally from Aramaic.   

                     Aram is mentioned as an area northeast of Syria, as early as 2500 

          B. C.  We have evidence of nomads called Suti raiding and wandering into 

          this area at this time and even earlier; they may be the Arameans' ances-

          tors.   The Semitic people found living there were called Arameans by Tig-

          lath-pileser around 1100 simply because of where they were living.

                     The Old Testament associates the patriarchs with these Arameans
          through the confession that every Israelite is called on to make:  “A wande-

          ring Aramean was my father (Deut. 26.5).”   In the 1100s B.C. such groups 

          were establishing more or less settled communities all along the Tigris and

          Euphrates, across the entire width of the Arabian Peninsula, and into Pale-

          stine.   By the 1000s B. C., they had succeeded in establishing little king-

          doms, and some in northern Syria learned alphabetic writing from the ear-

          lier settled Canaanites.

                     At first, they wrote in the Canaanite language; eventually they sim-

          ply used the Canaanite alphabet to write in their own language, which we 

          see in inscriptions dating from the 900s and 800s B. C. In this discussion 

          we will divide Aramaic into 4 groups: (a) Old Aramaic; (b) Official Aramaic; 

          (c) Levantine (Syrian and Palestinian) Aramaic; and (d) Eastern Aramaic.
                     Old Aramaic is the language of the inscriptions from northern Syria, 

          dating from the 900s to the 700s B.C.   When they ceased writing in the 

          Canaanite language, these Arameans wrote in stone using their local dia-

          lect.   After this dialect, Official Aramaic began to appear as a common lan-

          guage in governmental offices, a simple, standard Aramaic for correspon-

          dence throughout the Assyrian Empire.  Once this type of Aramaic was re-

          cognized as “official,” the Aramaic-speaking people in various parts of the 

          Empire would quite naturally begin to use it themselves.  Evidence of this 

          Aramaic is found in the Bible, in Greece, and in Egypt.

                          This Official Aramaic continued in use throughout the Neo-Babylo-

               nian period (605-538 B. C.) and the Persians, while they used their own 

               language in royal inscriptions, used Aramaic as the official language from 

               538-330 B. C. from the Persian Gulf in the east to Egypt in the west, and 

               from Palestine in the south to the Ural Mountains in the north.   And it was 

               used for writing stories as well as legal documents.   It is highly probable 

               that the book of Daniel was originally written in Aramaic, for the Hebrew 

               portions show in many places indications that they were translated from 

               Aramaic. 

                          Official Aramaic continued in use throughout the Hellenistic period 

               (330-30 B. C.).  Greek gradually ousted Aramaic, but the Nabateans and 

               Palmyrenes used Aramaic well into the Christian era, and Palestinians 

               used Aramaic in resistance to the penetration of Greek culture into their re- 

               gion.  In any case, the Aramaic used in each region was influenced by the 

               native language of that region. 

                     Levantine Aramaic seems to have come increasingly into everyday 

          use in Syria and Palestine, so that by the time the exiles returned, it had re-

          placed Hebrew as the commonly understood language. This Aramaic was 

          the popularly spoken language in New Testament times, in spite of wide-

          spread use of Greek.   The dialect spoken daily by Jesus and the disci-

          ples was Galilean Aramaic, which, as is noted in Matthew, was recogniza-

          bly different from the southern dialect spoken in and around Jerusalem.  

                          Much of the Samaritan religious literature is in Hebrew and Arabic, 

               but the Samaritans have a Targum to the Pentateuch in their own dialect, 

               which is close to the Galilean dialect.  Palestinian Christians doubtless 

               continued to use the local dialect among themselves, but the new religion's  

               official language was Greek.  In Christian villages in the Anti-Lebanon, a 

               Levantine Aramaic dialect is still the house language of people who in pub-

               lic use their neighbors' Arabic.

                          The nomadic Arameans who invaded the Tigris-Euphrates region 

               had their own local dialects.  There was Babylonian Jewish Aramaic, 

               which we see in part of the Babylonian Talmud.  There is Mandaean, a 

               dialect of a people in by the same name.   And there was Syriac, which be-

               came the Christian dialect of Eastern Aramaic.   As the language of the 

               scholarly center at Edessa, particularly when a Christian school succee-

               ded the pagan school, it developed in to a literary language of some im-

               portance. 

                          Dialects of Eastern Aramaic still survive among Christian groups in 

               and near the mountains, although they have been heavily influenced by 

               common use of Arabic and Turkish, and by the Syriac used in their church.  

               The Aramaic script, which was developed from the Canaanite script, has 

               in a sense been parent and grandparent to many alphabets.  Among them

               are the Greek, Latin, Cyrillic (Russian), Coptic, Mongol, Manchu, Tibetan, 

               Armenian, Georgian, and Arabic alphabets.

                                        A-56

        

       ARAMEANS (ארמים)  Arameans were a Semitic people, traditionally regar- 

               ded as descendants of Shem.  The actual origin of the Arameans is ob-

               scure; perhaps they were part of the nomads' mass migration that moved  

               northward through the western margins of the Syrian Desert toward 

               Egypt, Canaan, and the Euphrates. River. 

                          As early as the First Dynasty in Egypt (around 3100 B. C.), the no-

               mads appeared.  Later, around 2700 B.C., the nomads, or Sutu as they 

               were called, were in Assyria.  Sutu was used to describe both Arameans 

               and Amorites.  The nomads were called Ahlame (confederates) around 

               1400 B.C.  “Arameans” is probably a label the Assyrians gave to a small 

               group of nomads found in the land of Arame, northeast of Syria in the Ar-

               menian foothills.  

                          Some nomads thrusted toward Egypt, some moved eastward to-

               ward Lower Babylonia.  Most Arameans raided the Euphrates region from 

               Rapiqu northwestward along the full course of the river, seeking entrance 

               into Mesopotamia.  Many of their settlements were named beginning with 

               the word Bit and followed by the name of the tribe's hereditary leader.

                          From Suhu westward to Carchemish, small Aramean groups settled 

               along the Euphrates as early as 1132-1115 B. C., and were difficult to 

               keep out of Mesopotamia.   When Assyrian power broke around 990-975

               B. C., the Arameans seized their chance to invade, and by the time the 

               Assyrians came back to power in the 800s B. C., their states were so well 

               established that they could resist successfully and not be easily removed. 

                          The kingdom of Bit-Adini (called Beth-eden in the Bible) was one 

               such state, located on both sides of the Euphrates river.   It blocked Assy-

               ria's westward expansion to the Mediterranean and very early became a 

               leader of the western Arameans.  It also contains Haran, which is the an-

               cestral home of Abraham.   Although he settled in Canaan, it was from his 

               Aramean kinsmen that he chose the Aramean Rebekah as wife for Isaac, 

               and Isaac sent Jacob, the “wandering Aramean” to the same area for a 

               wife.   So the Arameans Rebekah, Leah, and Rachel became the ance-

               stors of the Hebrew people.

                           By the time of the judges (around 1225-1020 B. C.), there was a 

               strong concentration of Arameans around the sources of the Jordan.  

               They occupied the northern and northeastern borders of the land claimed

               by the Hebrews.  The Aramean kingdom of Geshur provided David with a

               wife and the mother of Absalom.   Associated with Zobah and Maacah 

               against David were the Arameans of Aram-beth-rehob.  These Arameans 

               were hired by Ammon against David.   Most Aramean groups were small 

               city-states relatively weak by themselves, entering mostly into temporary 

               alliances to meet an existing threat.

                          Damascus, a fruitful oasis in the plain below the Anti-Lebanon 

               mountains, was long an important “head of Syria,” a trade center that was 

               economically and culturally rich and politically strategic.   Tradition sug-

               gests Abraham passed through it on the way to Hebron.   David con-

               quered Damascus and garrisoned it.   When it was strong, it demanded 

               commercial concessions from its neighbors.   Proximity to Israel often 

               brought conflicts of interests.  When the Jewish kingdom split into Israel 

               (north) and Judah (south), 1st Judah would hire Damascus against Israel, 

               and then Israel would make an alliance with Damascus against Judah.

               Israel was strongly represented as an ally of many Aramean states

               against Assyria at the Battle of Qarqar (853 B.C.).

                          So long as the large Aramean states still organized and led coali-

               tions, such tactics were successful.  But a series of strong Assyrian kings 

               destroyed Aramean resistance and ultimately converted their states into 

               parts of Assyrian provinces.  Bit-Adini, mentioned earlier, fell to Shalmane-

               ser III in 856 B.C.   Hamath's Arameans, north of Damascus, were among 

               those who replaced the Samarians who were exiled.   When the Assyrian 

               officer in 701 B. C., before besieged Jerusalem boastfully recalled the hu-

               miliation of mighty Hamath and Arpad, Aramean political power in the west 

               was gone forever.

                          The great cultural contributions of the Arameans survived their na-

               tional existence.  They absorbed cultural elements of their neighbors, and 

               in their shifting around, spread them wherever they went.  They borrowed 

               the alphabet from the Phoenicians, developed their own peculiar forms of 

               it and transmitted it to the Persians, Hebrews, Arabs, and others.  The sim-

               plicity and efficiency of the Aramaic language and alphabet vanquished 

               the more difficult, cumbersome cuneiform scripts of the Akkadians and the 

               Persians.  

                          In Babylon, a soldier wrote his report from Babylon in Aramaic, and 

               an Assyrian officer was expected to be able to converse in the language.  

               When the Persians came to power, they recognized the value of the Ara-

               maic script and language, and helped spread their use.  Most of the Ara-

               maic writing that archaeologists have found today was not written by Ara-

               means, but by those who borrowed their valuable tools. Aramaic was the 

               language spoken in common by all the people of Palestine in the time of 

               Jesus. 

      ARAMITESS  (ארמיה, Aramean woman)  A designation of Manasseh's concu-

               bine, mother of Machir.

      ARAN (רןא)  The second son of the Horite clan chief Dishan.

                                             A-57

        ARARAT  (אררט)  A country in the general district of Armenia;  its Assyrian 

               name is Uratu.   Uratu rose in importance as a political unit in the 800s 

               B. C.   Ashurnasirpal II (884-859) refers to Uratu as the boundary of his 

               conquests.   His successor Shalmaneser III (859-824) made inroads into 

               Urartian territory on his campaigns, which are shown on Balawat's bronze 

               gates.  During Assyria's weak period after Shalmaneser, Uratian power ex-

               panded considerably.   Citadels were ingeniously constructed out of a  

               combination of masonry and rock cuttings.  Uratia made itself felt as far 

               west as northern Syria; Assyria lost several provinces to them.

                          Under Tiglath-pileser, the Uratian king Sarduri was defeated when

               he tried to come to the rescue of Arpad in 743 B. C.  Assyria re-conquered

               its ground in Uratu.  Sarduri escaped to his capital Turushpa on Lake Van, 

               which Tiglath-pileaser failed to capture.  The most famous campaign 

               against Urartu was conducted by Sargon (722-705); he captured Musasir,

               a city which was ruled by a King Urzanu.  

                          The Cimmerians were also invading Uratu.   Attention was diverted 

               from the Armenian front; and the later history of Uratu is marked by the fur-

               ther threat of invasions.  Although the Uratian kings of the 600s B. C. were

               still active in building new citadels, the final destruction was brought about 

               by Median attacks of the early 500s, after which Uratu ceased to exist as 

               an independent ethnic and political unit.

                          Archaeology has learned of Uratian architecture through the cities 

               of Van, Toprakkale, and Erivan.  The architectural style of Uratu found in 

               what is now eastern Turkey is related to what existed to the west.  Uratu 

               had an outstanding metal industry, which was exported to as far west as 

               Greece.  The flourishing and influence of Uratian art coincided with the 

               opening of oriental trade to Greece and Italy. 

                          Ararat's fame is connected with the flood story.  The mountains of 

               the north were conceived as the likeliest candidates for an early emer-

               gence from the flood.  Sennacherib was murdered by his son, who fled to

               Ararat (Uratu) in 681 B. C.  Uratians, Maneans, Scythians, and Medes 

               were all active preceding the fall of Babylon in the 500s B. C.

       ARATUS  (AretoV )  A Stoic poet of Soli in Cilicia who flourished in the mid-

               200s B. C.   His poem "Phaenomena" is quoted in Paul's Areopagus 

               speech, “for we are indeed his offspring.”

       ARAUNAH  (ארונה, nimble)  A Jebusite father of 4 sons, all of whom escaped 

               the plague; David purchased his threshing floor for the site of an altar to 

               stay the ravaging plague by sacrifice.   When the plague broke out and 

               killed 70,000, it was considered a judgment of God because of the cen-

               sus of David.   The prophet Gad instructed the penitent king to purchase

               the threshing floor of Araunay, where the plague appeared to cease, as a 

               fitting place for sacrifice.  David refused to accept the land as a gift, insis-

               ting on paying 50 shekels of silver for the purchase of the threshing floor.  

               This later became the site of the temple at Jerusalem.

 

       ARBA  (ארבע, 4)  Presented as a prom inent inhabitant of Hebron, or Kiriath-

               arba, ancestor of Anak and the greatest man among the Anakim or race of 

               giants.  Some scholars believe that this isn't actually a personal name but 

               simply part of the city-name, and that the "Kiriath" was left out when the 

               text was copied.   The original Hebrew text may have referred to the city 

               as the mother city of the Anakim. 

       ARBATHITE  (ערבתי)  A resident of Beth-Arabah, the home Abialbon, one of

               David's Mighty Men.

    

       ARBITE  (ארבי)  A resident of Arab, the home of Paarai, one of David's Mighty 

               Men. 

                                        A-58

       ARCHAEOLOGY  

                        List of Topics—1. Introduction;    2. Types of remains;    

             3. Method of Excavation;    4. Dating Archaeological Evidence;   

             5. Contributions of Archaeology to the Bible;   6. Exploration 

             and Excavation in Palestine

                          1. Introduction—The study of material remains, made up of all tan-

               gible manmade things of the past.  All these things are documents, either

               documents written, inscribed on a variety of materials, or unwritten docu-

               ments, such as fortifications, buildings of various kinds, sculpture, house-

               hold vessels, tools, weapons,  and personal ornaments.  This past is limi-

               ted to the period of human occupation of the earth, from at least 200,000 

               years ago—the Pleistocene period—to the present. With reference to time, 

               archaeology is divided into: prehistoric, which deals with the Stone Age; 

               and historic, which deals with the time from the Stone Age's end to the pre-

               sent.   The following is a table of Palestine's archaeological periods B.C.:  

                    Mesolithic (Natufian)     circa 8000-6000.          Early Iron

               Pre-Pottery Neolithic     circa 6000-5000              a. circa 1200-1150 

               Pottery Neolithic            circa 5000-4000              b.  circa 1150-1025 

               Chalcolithic                    circa 4000-3200              c.  circa 1025-950 

               Esdraelon                      circa 3200-3000              d.  circa  950-900 

               Early Bronze                  circa 3000-2100           Middle Iron

                     Early Bronze I          circa 3000-2800              a. circa 900-800 

                     Early Bronze II         circa 2800-2600              b. circa 800-700  

                     Early Bronze III        circa 2600-2300              c. circa 700-600 

                     Early Bronze  IV       circa 2300-2100              d. circa 600-500  

               Middle Bronze                circa 2100-1600           Late Iron (Persian)

                     Middle Bronze I        circa 2100-1900               600-300

                     Middle Bronze IIa     circa 1900-1700           Hellenistic 

                     Middle Bronze IIb     circa 1700-1600               (300-63 )

               Late Bronze                    circa 1600-1200          Roman

                     Late Bronze I            circa 1600-1400        (63 B.C.-323 C.E.)

                     Late Bronze IIa         circa 1400-1300          Byzantine  

                     Late Bronze IIb         circa 1300-1200               (323-636)

                                                                                          Islamic  (636-present)

              

                     An understanding of archaeology and its discoveries is necessary 

          for an understanding of the Bible.  No one can fully understand the Bible 

          without knowledge of biblical history and culture, and no one can claim 

          knowledge of biblical history and culture without an understanding of ar-

          chaeology.  Biblical events have been illustrated, obscure words defined, 

          ideas explained, and time lines refined by archaeological finds. Our know-

          ledge of the Bible has been revolutionized by these discoveries.

                          Almost every biblical student or scholar experiences a barrier of

               time and culture when they seek to project themselves into biblical times.

               Much of this barrier is broken down by archaeology; ancient peoples and 

               times become more real than is possible by dependence solely on the writ-

               ten word.  All aspects of material culture brought to light by excavation con-

               tribute to this intimacy.  Through excavation the world of the Bible is being 

               resurrected, and the Bible can be seen in its true background.  Archaeolo-

               gy reveals both the similarities and the differences between Israel and Is-

               rael's neighbors.  Archaeology doesn't and can't prove the Bible. The Bible

               deals with man's relationship to God, and is, therefore beyond the proof of 

               archaeology. 

                          2. Types of remains—Some ancient remains have always been 

               either partially or completely exposed, because of their location, size, or 

               state of preservation (e.g. the Coliseum in Rome, the Parthenon in Athens,

               the pyramids and temples of Egypt, Baalbek in Lebanon, and Jerash in 

               Jordan.  Most ancient remains are buried beneath tons of debris or drifted 

               sand, and are recovered by means of excavation.

                          Ancient towns vary in size from a cluster of houses occupying as 

               little as 80 to 120 meters² to planned cities covering as much as 8,000 

               meters².  Their locations were determined by natural features:   good wa-

               ter; a natural harbor; raw materials; tillable land; or if they were near major 

               trade routes.   These advantages remained the same generation after ge-

               neration; towns continued to occupy the same sites for centuries, though 

               occasionally with gaps in occupation. 

                          Many kinds of tombs were used in antiquity: natural or artificial 

               caves;  individual graves dug in houses or open areas; mausoleums, 

               either stonebuilt or cut out of rock.   Ancient tombs contain skeletons, and 

               many objects, including vessels, weapons, jewelry, and occasionally furni-

               ture.  Tombs of prominent persons were almost always plundered in anti-

               quity by enterprising robbers, and aside from pottery, little is found in them. 

                          Frequently tombs were reused by succeeding generations, so that 

               they contain many burials and hundreds of objects.   These objects were 

               more likely to be found whole or only slightly broken than those found 

               elsewhere.   Except for monumental tomb structures, tombs are generally 

               hard to find, because they are covered over and their location is un-

               marked.  Frequently they are discovered by accident.

                                                A-59

                           The excavation of tombs is hampered by small spaces, dust-filled 

               air, poor ventilation, and objects that tend to disintegrate when exposed 

               to air.   Extremely delicate objects such as wooden utensils and furniture 

               are treated with preservatives immediately; the debris is sifted for beads, 

               jewelry, and seals.   If several layers of undisturbed burials are found, 

               each layer is cleaned, planned and photographed as a unit before it is 

               removed.

                          When the initial settlement was destroyed, the next occupation 

               was built on top of the remains.  This process, repeated time and time 

               again, resulted in formation of mounds or tells, which often reach a height

               of 23 meters or more above the natural surface.  Generally, these mounds 

               are shaped like cones with the tip cut off; they contain the remains of the 

               earliest occupation at the base of the mound, and the latest at the top.  

               They are neither absolutely level nor uniformly deep, but tend to slope, 

               thin out, or deepen, depending on the natural shape of the site and the 

               debris on which they lie.  Various kinds of holes were often sunk into ear-

               lier layers, and contribute to the unevenness.

                         In the layers of debris that make up a stratum are found the re-

               mains of buildings and structures of ancient towns. They are built of sun-

               dried mud brick or stone and sometimes both.  Floors are made of flag-

               stones, plaster, or packed earth.  The most common class of object is 

               pottery, and 10s of 1,000s of sherds are brought to light in the average 

               Palestinian excavation.   

                          3. Method of Excavation—The choice of where to dig depends 

               on the excavator's purpose in digging. The site may be of historical im-

               portance or hold the key to unanswered questions.  It may help fix a parti-

               cular culture or event in time.  It may simply be an accessible, available, 

               or easily securable site.  Whatever the case, a permit to excavate must be 

               secured from the governmental department in charge of archaeological

               sites; arrangements to either rent or purchase the site must be made with

               the owner or owners.

                          Once on the site, the archaeologist selects the area he plans to 

               excavate and determines the location of dumps.  The criteria for selecting 

               the trench's location is similar to that of selecting the site itself.  For exam-

               ple, if one wishes to study the sequence of fortifications, he will dig one or 

               more trenches at right angles to the line of the walls along the edges of 

               the site. 

                          1st, the mound area is laid out and surveyed; it is divided into sec-

               tions, usually measuring about 5 m on a side.  The surface of the section 

               is then cleared of plants and rubble; anything found is recorded as a sur-

               face find.  If a clear and true picture is to be gained of a site, it is impera-

               tive that the excavation proceed by removing one layer at a time and by 

               not mixing layers.

                          These layers are distinguished by differences in color and texture. 

               The excavator always digs one or more small trenches to a depth of 60 or 

               90 cm and smooths the sides with a mason's trowel.  When seen from the 

               side,   the subtle differences in layers can be seen and provide a preview 

               of the pattern of the layers in the area.  The small trench is used as a 

               guide to separate and excavate each layer.  The objects found in each

               layer are placed in baskets and carefully labeled.   A careful description of 

               each layer, sketches with exact measurements of all buildings, and a 

               rough description of the objects discovered are entered in the field note-

               book.  

                          When walls appear, the archaeologist immediately begins to look

               for floors, because the objects above the floor must be kept separate from 

               those below.  The archaeologist digs one or more small test trenches at 

               right angles to the wall, and in so doing usually discovers the floor.  Walls 

               and floors are cleaned, drawn to scale, photographed and are studied in 

               detail.  Later, scale drawings of the sides of the section are made to see 

               the relative position of all the layers.  If this procedure seems time-con-

               suming and unnecessary, it must be remembered that all excavation is 

               destruction; once a section is dug it is gone forever. 

                          Accurate recording is absolutely essential.  All features of the exca-

               vated area, such as room deposits, walls, floors, and ovens are thorough-

               ly cleaned, planned and photographed.  The objects recovered are 

               brought from the mound in baskets which carry identifying tags.   It isn't 

               feasible to keep 10s of 1,000s of pottery sherds; they are sorted, and only 

               characteristic types of partial and whole vessels are saved.  A pottery 

               notebook is kept with thedate, number of pieces and observations of the 

               pottery of each layer.   It depends on the government involved as to how 

               much stays in the country and must be studied on the spot, and how much

               may be taken and studied off-site.

                          Excavators prepare preliminary excavation reports as well as a 

               final, comprehensive report.   Having excavated and destroyed all or part 

               of a site, they are responsible for making available a full and accurate re-

               cord and interpretation of their excavation.  Based on their findings, as 

               well as the findings of many scientific specialists, they then fit the site into

               the political, economic, and cultural history of the area, and if possible, 

               into the ancient Near East's larger framework.   Because mistakes are 

               inevitably made and problems are left unsolved, the study of the raw data 

               of an excavation goes on long after the final report is published. 

                                                 A-60

  

                          The use of objects for dating strata presupposes a knowledge of 

               the principle of change.  New styles appear and are popular for a time.  

               They are modified to suit changing tastes and needs.  Ultimately, they 

               lose favor altogether and disappear.  Archaeologists will pick out all ex-

               amples of a single class from each layer; study them and note all chan-

               ges in their manufacturing, form, and finish.   The layer in which the class 

               first appears, each layer in which it undergoes changes, and the layer in 

               which it is last found is also noted.  Few of the objects found have intrin-

               sic value; precious objects have been found, but only very rarely in a 

               poor country like Palestine.   Their value comes in dating the levels, and 

               in describing and comparing cultures.  

                          When all the sites in a region share similar objects, they can be 

               said to belong to a common material culture.   By the intensive study of 

               objects, archaeologists have been able to isolate and describe the major 

               centers of material culture in the ancient Near East—Egypt, Mesopotamia, 

               Anatolia, and Syro-Palestine.   In ancient times, Palestine and Transjor-

               dan belonged to the same material culture, as shown by many common 

               features, one of which is ceramics.  The discovery of foreign objects sug- 

               gests trade and commerce or the presence of a foreign power.   Locally 

               made objects that imitate the objects from other regions also indicates 

               contact with foreign lands.

                          Objects also throw light on immigration and colonization.  Around 

               1175 B. C., a new kind of pottery, featuring different shapes and decora-

               tive styles, suddenly appears at sites on the coastal plains and the adjoi-

               ning foothills of the Shephelah.  The place and date of this pottery indica-

               ted that it was Philistine.  Analysis of its shapes and motifs, and compari- 

               sons with other contemporary pottery of the ancient world have shown 

               that its ultimate source was Aegean (near Greece).

                          4. Dating Archaeological Evidence—The Bible and other an-

               cient literature are the best sources for creating a chronology.  The litera-

               ure found at sites sometimes supplies information about cities, including 

               names of founders and conquerors, and allows for a high degree of accu-

               racy in fixing dates, but only if they are found in the same layer as the one 

               they are writing about.   The signs or letters used in writing changes over 

               time; this change is also used to supply approximate dates for layers in 

               which written documents are found.  

                          Although virtually all objects are useful for dating, some are of grea-

               ter value than others.   Because pottery is the most common and inde-

               structible artifact, and because it is an excellent medium for the expres-

               sion of change, it is the most useful class of objects for determining dates 

               within a maximum error of about 2 centuries, and most often within a cen-

               tury or less.

                          Coins are also valuable evidence in determining dates, when 

               enough are found to prove that they were contemporary with the layer in 

               which they were discovered.  Since coins were invented in the 600s B.C., 

               they are only useful in dating relatively late strata.  Less common objects 

               can be of use in fixing dates, but only if a series of them has been found, 

               enough to establish a pattern and timetable for changes that took place.

                       In the case of imported objects, if the object can be securely dated in 

               the place of its origin, it can be extremely valuable for dating the layer in 

               which it was found.  A time lag of perhaps 50 years, but usually far less 

               must be factored in, as well as the possibility that object was a family heir-

               loom, and therefore found in a layer somewhat later than the period in 

               which it was manufactured and imported.

                          The changing styles of art and architecture are becoming increa-

               singly useful for purposes of chronology as more is learned about ancient

               art forms and motifs.  Unfortunately, art objects, and particularly sculpture, 

               are not plentiful in Palestine, largely because of the overall poverty of the 

               country, and because of Israelite religious prohibitions. 

                          In architecture, dates of changes in methods of construction and 

               styles of masonry are now known.  Architectural styles are more difficult to 

               recover in Palestine because of the widespread use of sun-dried mud-

               brick construction, which lacks permanence, and because of the common 

               practice of building over and over again on the same site, which destroys

               the structures  below.

                          The natural sciences increasingly assist archaeology in classifica-

               tion and analysis of artifacts.  Botanists classify samples of wood and 

               grain; zoologists and anthropologists classify animal and human bones.  

               Conchologists analyze shells, and geologists can often locate the quarry 

               from which stone was taken to fashion building blocks, sculpture, beads  

               and other objects.  

                                                     A-61

          A number of established scientific techniques are used on objects  

               found with excellent results:

                (a.)  petrographic analysis—thin slices of potsherds are studied

                    under a petrographic microscope to determine the minerals pre-

                    sent in the pottery. 

                (b.)  neutron activation—sherds are placed in a nuclear reactor 

                    and the chemical composition of the clay is determined from the 
               induced radioactivity.

                (c.)  chemical analysis—qualitative and quantitative tests are 

                    done to determine the identity   and proportions of the constitu-

                    ents of clays and metals.  

                (d.)  spectrographic analysis—material is burned in an arc and 

                    the spectrum produced is measured to determine the composi-

                    tion of metals, and to a lesser degree, clays.

                    (e.)  radiocarbon dating—All living things take in carbon. That 

                         intake ceases at death and disintegrates at a fixed rate.  Mea-

                         surements of the amount of carbon remaining in organic matter 

                         provides an approximate age of the material.  

               When 2 or more of these tests are used they: provide a means of descri-

               bing objects exactly and objectively; they distinguish foreign from locally 

               made objects and thus supply data on ancient trade. 

                          In sites which have not been excavated layer by layer, the layers 

               of debris can't be dated precisely, because their objects are hopelessly 

               mixed.   At best, the objects of each building or location can be compared 

               with objects from accurately dated layers from other sites. It is the only 

               method that can be used with poorly excavated sites, and permits a cau-

               tious use of the findings.

                          5. Contributions of Archaeology to the Bible—One of the most

               important contributions of archaeology is the recovery of a number of an-

               cient Near Eastern languages.  A staggering volume of documents written 

               in Akkadian, Ugaritic, Egyptian, Sumerian, and Hittite have been disco-

               vered, which has aided in the deciphering of these languages.  The conti-

               nuing study of ancient Near Eastern languages and literatures has made 

               the Bible more easily understood.   Many words and phrases in Hebrew 

               which could not be accurately translated can now be better understood

               because of discovering identical words and phrases in these texts.  These 

               documents also shed more light on the laws, religious practices, and the-

               ological ideas of Biblical times than can be found in the Bible itself.

                          While the Bible is a veritable treasury of historical information, its 

               whole approach to history is religiously rather than politically or economi-

               cally oriented.   It leaves out details that aren't important in understanding 

               the faith history of the times, but that are important in understanding politi-

               cal history.

                           Archaeology has also confirmed many details of biblical history.   

               Various biblical events have been considered unauthentic by scholars, 

               not because they contradicted known facts, but because they seemed im-

               plausible.  For example, every Judean site excavated to date, which was 

               inhabited circa 600 B.C., has been found to have been destroyed in this 

               period, reoccupied after a gap of several decades, if indeed it was ever 

               reoccupied again.

                          Similarly, the description of the power, fame and wealth of Solo-

               mon has been considered by some scholars to be a gross exaggeration.  

               Excavations at various sites have illustrated that an elaborate state orga-

               nization, a high material culture, and a thriving economy, a Golden Age, 

               existed during Solomon's reign, more so than in any other Near Eastern 

               power at that time.  There are discrepancies between the Bible and his-

               tory.  Most are small and can be readily explained; some are more seri-

               ous and cannot be accounted for easily.  Rather than assume that the Bi-

               blical authors are wrong, scholars usually reserve final judgment until 

               more evidence is forthcoming.     

                          6. Exploration and Excavation in Palestine—Modern surface 

               exploration of Palestine began in 1838 with Edward Robinson and Eli 

               Smith.  From that time, various expeditions traveled through the country, 

               studying topography and identifying many biblical places.  Scientific ex-

               cavation in Palestine traces its origin to W. M. F. Petrie, who dug the 

               mound of Tell el-Hesi (Biblical Eglon?) in 1890.   His contribution was in 

               noticing the existence of layers in Palestinian mounds, and in the disco-

               very that pottery undergoes changes over time that can be correlated 

               with the layers to establish a date date.  The time between Petrie's exca-

               vation and World War I was a pioneering period.

                          There were flashes of brilliance and some development of good 

               analytical methods; as a whole though, it was a disappointing period.  

               Excavation technique was poor overall, and serious blunders were made

               in interpretation.  After World War I, from 1920 to 1939, places like the Bi-

               blical City of David, Megiddo, and Jericho were excavated.  The confu-

               sion that prevailed before World War I was dispelled by this and similar 

               work.

                                                A-62

                          After World War II and the Arab-Israeli conflict excavation resumed.  

               The 1st group of Dead Sea Scrolls was discovered in 1948, and numer-

               ous excavations of caves followed.  Archaeological excavation continues 

               today.  It is safe to say that the rapidly accumulating mass of archaeologi-

               cal data will vastly enrich our knowledge of ancient Palestine and of bibli-

               cal life and times. 

       ARCHELAUS  (ArcluoV)  Son of Herod the Great and Malthaces.  Herod's 

               will named Herod Antipas and Philip as tetrarchs, but Archelaus as the 

               principal successor in 4 B.C.  Archelaus tried to calm the Jews' hostility 

               before he assumed the throne.  Despite his efforts to win over the Jews 

               they showed such unbroken animosity and rebellion that the force of 

               arms was needed to put down disorders, such as at the temple on Pass-

               over, when Archelaus felt it necessary to loose his army on the milling 

               throngs.

                           As to the crown, Herod Antipas laid claim to it based on the body 

               of the will.   Archelaus' claim was based on a later amendment to the will. 

               Both brothers sailed to Rome to lay their claims before Augustus.  Their 

               mother first supported Archaleus then Antipas; she died before a deci-

               sion was made.   The Romans had to put down disorders in Judea.   A 

               third party showed up, asking Augustus to abstain from appointing any-

               one from Herod's family king, and allow the Jews to live by their own laws.

               When  Augustus heard the case, his decision was to award half of 

               Herod's land,  mostly Judea to Archelaus, and the other half was divided 

               between Philip and Antipas.   

                          Back in Judea, Archelaus interfered with the high priesthood, di-

               vorced his first wife, Mariamne, and married Glaphyra, who had already 

               been widowed twice; she had been his half-brother's wife.   This fact 

               transgressed Jewish law.   Archelaus' oppression of Samaritans and Jews 

               prompted them to send deputations to Caesar to denounce Archelaus. In 

               6 A.D. Archelaus was banished to Gaul, to a city now known as Vienne.  

               His territory was added to Syria; the procurator Coponius, was sent to ad-

               minister Judea. 

       ARCHER  (ירא (yaw raw); קשת (keh sheth))  A soldier equipped with a bow 

               and arrows.  The Hebrew word Machetsetserim is translated as “archers” 

               by the King James Version.  The later Revised Standard Version trans-

               lates it as “musicians.”  It is not certain whether the archer corps was a 

               well-developed unit in the Hebrew Army, as it was among the Assyrians.  

               Saul was wounded by Philistine archers on Mount Gilboa.   King Josiah 

               was shot by the Egyptian archers.  The Joseph tribe is represented as an 

               invincible archer attacked by archers.   

       ARCHEVITES  (ארכוי)  Inhabitants of the city of Erech (Uruk) in Babylonia 

               that were resettled in Samaria. 

       ARCHIPPUS (apcippos)  One of the persons to whom Paul addressed the

               letter entitled “To Philemon,” and who is also called Paul's fellow soldier 

               and is mentioned in the Letter to the Colossians.  John Knox suggests 

               that the ministry which Archippus is being urged to fulfill is the freeing of 

               his slave Onesimus, and to become an evangelist in the work of the Chris-

               tian church. 

       ARCHITE (ארכי)  A clan of Benjamin, established in the territory southwest of 

               Bethel. Its most noteworthy member was Hushai, the counselor of David 

               and Absalom.   

       ARCHITECTURE  

                         List of Topics—1. Introduction;      2.  Materials: Mud,   

             Reeds, Rubble and Stones;     3. Construction and Plan:   

             Roofing the Walls;    4. Construction and Plan:  City Walls

             and Jerusalem Temple;     5. Construction and Plan: City 

             Gates and Buildings;     6. Construction and Plan:  Greek 

             Influence; Conclusion 

                          1. Introduction—The art of building; herein confined to ancient Pa-

               lestine from the Neolithic Age (5000 B.C.) until 100 A.D.  Modern know-

               ledge is restricted by ancient writers' lack of interest in architecture, and 

               by so few buildings surviving, and those with only two rows of bricks still

               standing.

                          Throughout most of the period men built their own houses; the vil-

               lages in which they lived were the creation of their own unskilled commu-

               nal labor.   So town walls, gates, & temples, are “homemade” in character.  

               Only in periods of exceptional prosperity or political expansion do we find 

               ambitious architecture which displays the hand of professional craftsmen. 

                          2.  Materials:  Mud, Reeds, Rubble and Stones—Native building 

               depended on the materials provided by the soil—limestone, rocks, wood, 

               reeds, and mud.   The fine shaping and carving of these materials can 

               hardly be found before the Late Bronze Age (1600-1200 B.C.).   Through-

               out the period mud was used, either raw as mortar for solidifying or rende-

               ring rubble walls, or dried in the sun as bricks; in the Early Bronze Age     

               wooden molds were used and chopped straw was used to keep glutinous 

               clay from sticking to the molds.  

                          As to the use of reeds in building, we can be sure that people living 

               in the low-lying, marshy ground that occurs in the coastal plan, and round 

               the upper reaches of the Jordan, built their houses at least partly out of 

               what was the easiest material at hand.  To this day, marsh reeds bound 

               together and packed in mud form the most efficient and economical roo-

               fing material for houses in the Jordan Valley. 

                                            A-63

                          In the earliest town we know about, Neolithic (roughly 6000 B.C.) 

               Jericho, not only mud and reed, but also stone was used for building. As

               early as the 6000s B.C., or even 7000s B.C., the town was enclosed in a 

               protective rampart of boulders, all of which may have been covered in 

               plaster.  Even the most monumental works of thousands of years later, like 

               the city rampart and a gate at Shechem, or the Bronze Age rampart at Jeri-  

               cho, represent basically no more than that.

                          From the earliest times until the end of the period, the native house 

               was a thing of rubble walls, sealed on both faces with mud mortar.   An ex-

               ceptional building of the early Bronze Age was found at Ai, composed of 

               stones roughly dressed to a uniform size; there were places for heavy col-

               umns along the side of a long hall.  The column size implied by the size of 

               these plinths or platforms suggested the existence of an upper story.  It is 

               the earliest example of the more ambitious planning and construction that 

               sometimes distinguished individual Palestinian buildings from common vil-

               lage architecture. 

                          3. Construction and Plan:  Roofing the Walls—The crucial pro-

               blem isn't how to raise walls but how to roof the area between them.  Until 

               the 400s B.C., the Jewish or Canaanite builder had no other way of roo-

               fing an area than by laying wooden beams or long stones across it, resting 

               their ends on walls at either side.  He remained limited by the length and 

               strength of the timbers or stones at his disposal and his capacity to lift 

               them until the Persian period (600 B.C.), when we begin to see vaulted 

               ceilings and arches; they remain rare in Palestine until a few years before 

               Christ's birth.  

                          Until that time, the principle roofing material was timber, of which 

               the mountains and foothills of Galilee, Samaria, and Judea would have af-

               forded an ample supply.  Such roofs would have been laid flat across the

               wall tops, with a gentle slope to run off rainwater.

                          The normal house throughout the Bronze and Iron Ages, as even 

               today, was a loose agglomeration of small rectangular rooms, often 

               grouped beside or around a little open-air yard.  The only feature which 

               survives to give an impression of architectural distinction is the post or co-

               lumn.  A Neolithic Jericho building had a roof spanning a room 5.2m wide 

               that was supported by 2 wooden columns.    

                           4. Construction and Plan:  City Walls and Jerusalem Temple 

               The architecture of city walls was awe-inspiring to Hebrew spies, and no-

               where did the native rough stone architecture of Palestine achieve a more 

               monumental effect than in the gates and ramparts of the Bronze and Iron 

               Age cities. 

                          Most Palestinian cities were perched on considerable mounds of 

               accumulation. Lines of defense would be chosen near the top of the slope,

               and the lower parts revetted with a compact glacis of rammed earth.  The 

               approach to these high embanked cities was necessarily up a sloping 

               road, dangerously flanked by the walls, toward a gate at the top.  

                           The gates provided either a zigzag entrance into the city, or alter- 

               nating wide and narrow passages as a way of protecting the city's en-

               trance.  This was an ancient protective device found not only in Canaan 

               but also throughout the ancient East. 

                          Of the monumental structures we know about, the most famous 

               was the temple at Jerusalem, built for King Solomon and rebuilt by Herod 

               the Great, the earliest known masterpiece of a tradition of dressed stone 

               and timber construction.  The book of Kings makes it clear that Phoeni-

               cian masons and joiners, lent by King Hiram of Tyre around 950 B.C., 

               were the effective creators of the temple.   The temple was a structure of 

               squared stones with a timber roof, raised on a podium above the enclosure

               in which it stood.  It had 2 chambers with a porch or vestibule in front; the 2 

               chambers were surrounded on 3 sides by adjoining rooms.  The temple 

               was built to its full height in squared stone.  

                          The enclosure wall was composed of three courses of cut stone 

               with a row of cedar beams on top. Of specifically architectural ornament at 

               this period, little has survived, and we have to guess how the temple was 

               built; so we look to actual buildings at Megiddo and Samaria for clues.  

                          5. Construction and Plan:  City Gates and Buildings—The 

               gates and buildings of the Solomonic city at Megiddo had brick and timber 

               super-structures resting on foundations composed of narrow piers of finely 

               dressed and bonded rough-hewned limestone blocks set between lengths 

               of rubble walling.  The jointed masonry at Samaria and Megiddo was laid

               with fine precision.

                                                        A-64

                          Whether the surface was chiseled smooth or left with a rustic boss, 

               masons were careful to smooth meticulously as much of the front margin 

               of each stone as was needed to ensure perfect alignment and tight join-

               ting.  Much of this work was also done by masons from Tyre after Solo-

               mon's reign.   And whenever foreign influences are withdrawn from Pale-

               stine, its architecture reverts to the “village” style described above, as 

               when Solomon died in Judah, and Ahab died in Israel. 

                         The next actual building we know of that displays architecture be-

               yond the village style is a half a millennium later, the governor's residence 

               at Lachish.   The characteristic method adopted by builders in brick, in 

               timberless countries, is to use stone vaulting and arched doorways.  The 

               occurrence of that style in this building points unmistakably to Persia or 

               Mesopotamia.   Even tombs displayed foreign influences, with one found 

               in Silinwan that reflects the Egyptian style.

                          6. Construction and Plan:  Greek Influence; Conlusion—After 

               Alexander's conquest of the East, Greek motifs mingled with Egyptian and 

               Persian motifs, as in the so-called “Absalom's Tomb,” of which the cylindri- 

               cal and conical upper parts are built of finely dressed and jointed mason-

               ry, but which rests on a rock-cut base.  The Greek tendencies in Jewish 

               architecture of the 100 years before Christ coincided with a revival of the 

               art of finely jointed and squared masonry, a revival promoted most effec-

               tively by Herod the Great (30-4 B.C.).  He founded numerous cities within

               his kingdom, and endowed them with temples, theaters, hippodromes, and

               baths, like those found in Greek and Roman cities. 

                          The greatest of these was Jerusalem's reconstructed temple sur-

               rounded in Greek style with porticos.   The temple itself followed the old

               Solomonic building's plan, but with an extended porch.  There was a gigan-

               tic doorway over 30 m high.   None of all this can be seen today, except 

               parts of the gigantic enclosure wall of the precinct, built of squared and 

               paneled blocks of impeccable jointing and prodigious size.   Much of the 

               building under Herod was cosmopolitan in character, could be matched in

               any province of the Roman Empire, but all of it clearly had native oriental 

               motifs.   The temple itself, for all its Corinthian colonnades, followed the 

               lines of its Phoenician predecessor.   

                          Architectural history in Palestine repeats itself.   Both Solomon's 

               temple and Herod the Great's temple reflected the cosmopolitan brilliance 

               of their reigns. Both Solomon's and Herod's subjects, and neighbors were 

               Orientals aspiring momentarily to partnership in a Western civilization 

               (Phoenician in Solomon's case; Greek in Herod's).  In Herod's time, the 

               architecture of Jerusalem's public buildings and other great eastern Medi-

               terranean cities were an adaptation of Grecian forms to the Semitic East's 

               brooding nature and antique symbolism.   

       ARCHIVES, HOUSE OF THE (םבית ספרי (bet  se fa reem), house of 

               scribes or writing)  A place where public records and historic documents or 

               decrees are stored, perhaps in the temple area or in the royal treasury;

               things like Jeremiah's scroll, the scroll of the law, and annals of the kings.

               Archaeologists have found archives of tablets, and scrolls at Persepolis, 

               Nineveh, Ras Sharma, Elephantine, and Cairo.

       ARCTURUS (עש (ash), “moth”, עיש (a yeesh)) The designation of a group 

               of stars.  The Bible versions yield a variety of evidence showing that the     

               translators knew nothing of the original term.   The Hebrew word ayish     

               has been  elated to an Arabic word for wagon.  The 4 central stars have 3 

               lesser stars, known as “children” in the Book of Job, which form the Bear's 

               tail, or the wagon's pole. 

       ARD, ARDITES (ארד)  A descendent of Benjamin, among the 70 persons of 

               the house of Jacob, that came into Egypt. 

       ARDON  One of the sons of Caleb in the genealogy of Judah. 

       ARELI (אראלי) Son of Gad; ancestral head of the “family of the Arelites.” 

       AREOPAGUS, AREOPAGITES  (AreioV pagoV (air ee os  pay gos), 

               AreopagithV)  A rocky hill at Athens; the hill is 112 m high, and is

               between the Acropolis and the Pnyx.  The Panathenic way ran between

               the Areopagus and the Acropolis.  A “council in the Areopagus,” or “coun-

               cil of the Areopagites” originally met on it.

                                            A-65

                          

                         There were 2 stones on the Areopagus:  the Outrage; and the Ruth-

               lessness stone (the accused stood on “Outrage,” the accusers stood on 

               "Ruthlessness").   The court’s functions varied from time to time; some-

                times it heard mostly capital crimes cases; at others it dealt with legal,  

                political, educational, and religious affairs.  The council sometimes met in 

                places other than the hill, (e.g. the Stoa Basileios in the Agora).  Paul may

                have come before the council and made his speech, or they may have 

                met on the Areopagus.  

       ARETAS  (AretaV)  The name borne by kings of Arabia at Petra and Dama- 

               scus.  In Genesis, Nabaioth was the first born of Ishmael; the Nabateans 

               are the descendants of Nabaioth.  Their capital city and stronghold was 

               Sela, “the cliff,” which the Greeks of that time called Petra, the name we 

               know it by today.  Though the inhabitants were of the Arab race, Aramaic 

               was the language of their writing and inscriptions.  (See also the entry in 

               the Old Testament Apocrypha / Intertestamental section of the Appendix). 

                          In New Testament times we find Nabateans still exercising authority 

               in Damascus. Paul says that “the governor under King Aretas guarded the

               city of Damascus in order to seize me,” but Paul escaped.   It is hard to ex-

               plain how Damascus, a city in a Roman province, could be under the pro-

               tection of King Aretas' officer of.   The Aretas who posed such a threat to 

               Paul was Aretas IV (9 B.C.-40 A.D.) At that time the Nabatean kingdom ex-

               tending from the Euphrates to the Red Sea.  Aretas attacked and defeated 

               Herod Antipas, partly in revenge for the divorce of his daughter by Herod. 

       ARGOB (ערגב, mound)  A part of the Og kingdom containing 60 cities, and 

               situated in northern Gilead.  It was assigned by Moses to the tribe of Ma-

               nasseh and was conquered by Jair the son of Manasseh.  Its actual loca-

               tion is uncertain. 

       ARIDAI  (ארידי, delight of Hari)  One of Haman's 10 sons, slain in the Jews' 

               purge of their enemies in the book of Esther. 

       ARIDATHA (ארידתא, given by Hari)  One of Haman's ten sons, who was 

               slain in the Jews' purge of their enemies in the book of Esther. 

       ARIEL  (אריאל, lion of God; hearth of God)  1.  One of the “chief men”  sum-

               moned by Ezra.     2.  A cryptic name for Jerusalem as the “hearth of God.” 

       ARIMATHEA  (Arimaqaia)  A town which most locate about 16 km north- 

               east of Lydda and around 32 km east of Jaffa, in the hills of the Shephelah.   

               Arimathea is named in the story of Joseph of Arimathea, who obtained the 

               body of Jesus and interred it in his own unused rock tomb.

       ARIOCH  (אריוך, lion-like)  An ally of Chedorlaomer who joined a punitive 

               campaign against 5 kings in southern Palestine; the 5 kings were beaten.  

               Arioch and Chedorlaomer were later defeated by Abram.  The place where 

               Arioch ruled remains uncertain, as does what name Arioch was known by 

               outside of the Bible. 

       ARISAI  (אריסי, lion-like)  One of Haman's ten sons, who was slain in the 

               Jews' purge of their enemies in the book of Esther. 

       ARISTARCHUS  (AristagcoV,  best ruler (?))  A Macedonian from Thes-

               lonica who was a Gentile associate and a valued and intimate companion 

               who traveled with Paul in Macedonia; he was arrested with Paul in Ephe-

               sus.  He was also probably a fellow prisoner of Paul's in Rome.  Tradition

               says that he was martyred in Rome under Nero. 

       ARISTOBULUS (AristobouloV )  1.  A Christian whose family is men-

               tioned in the letter to the Romans. He is otherwise unknown.  (See also 

               the entry in Old Testament Apocrypha / Influences Outside the Bible sec-

               tion of the Appendix.)  

                                            A-66

       ARK OF NOAH  (תבה, (tay bah))  A vessel which Noah was ordered to build 

               and in which he, his family, and a pair of all living creatures floated in du-

               ring the great Flood.  The ark described in Genesis is nothing more than a 

               floating house; its sole function was to stay afloat. Biblical description is 

               too meager to permit reconstruction; it measured 300 cubits long (about 

               150 m), by 50 cubits wide (about 25m), by 30 cubits high (15 m high).  The

               Sumerian-Babylonian story of the Flood bears marked resemblance to the 

               Genesis account

       ARK OF THE COVENANT  (רוןא (aw rone), ark)  There are some 200 refe-

               rences to the ark in the Old Testament in the form of 22 different phrases 

               (e.g.  “the ark, ark of Yahweh, ark of God, divine ark, ark of the covenant,” 

               etc.)  Nearly 1/3 of the references and 7 different phrases appear in 2 

               books (I and II Samuel), or 1/16 of the Old Testament (OT).

                          The simple wooden chest of the earlier stories and the elaborate 

               golden shrine of the Priestly document are viewed variously as:  embodi-

               ment of the presence of Yahweh; a counterpart to the divine soul; an ob-

               ject essential to success of the Israelite army in the tribal government days 

               before the monarchy; as a container, either of a sacred stone from a sa-

               cred place like Sinai, or of the 10 Commandments; or a portable throne for 

               the presence of Yahweh.  What we have here is several parallel ancient 

               ideas, none of which excludes the others, but which overlap and receive 

               different emphasis in different parts of the literature.

                         The ark 's origin is unclear, though it likely goes back to Moses.  In 

               the book of Deuteronomy, Moses made an ark [or box] and put the 2 stone 

               tablets of the 10 Commandments inside.   Other traditions used to tell 

               Moses' story confirms that the ark goes back to Moses, and that it was ac-

               tually constructed after the golden-calf incident.  2 of the 4 traditions used 

               to tell Moses' story regard the ark as a container from the beginning, 

               though there is little evidence of this in the Samuel stories. There, the ark 

               is more of an extension of Yahweh's personality than it is a container.  

               There is no reason to say it had to be either a container or an extension of 

               Yahweh; it is not a distinction that the nation of Israel made.

                          The ark first appears in the wilderness wanderings, in the so-called 

               Song of the Ark in the Book of Numbers. It is an ancient military poem of 

               Yahweh and the ark which could well belong to the desert period. In this 

               song, the ark is not only seen as the leader of Israel's host, but it is directly

               addressed as Yahweh.   The ark is conceived of as an extension of Yah-

               weh's personality. 

                          The ark led Israel in the crossing of the Jordan into Canaan in the 

               book of Joshua.  The account we have was adapted from the original ac-

               count so that it could be used in a worship setting to celebrate the anniver-

               sary of the crossing and the founding of the sanctuary at Gilgal, where it 

               took place.   The story and location of the ark becomes obscure until its 

               reappearance at the Shiloh sanctuary in the care of Eli and his family; it  

               may have been at Bethel until then.   The Israelites are defeated by the 

               Philistines without the ark being present.   They went into battle a second 

               time with the ark, and the Philistines, although portrayed as fearful, won 

               again and captured the ark; its departure from Israel is described as the 

               exiling of glory from Israel.

                          The sojourn of the ark in the Philistine cities brought only disaster 

               to them, such as the bubonic plague in Philistia.  It was sent back to Israel

               in an unguided, new cart, pulled by newly calved cows.  They went direct-

               ly to the village of Beth-shemesh, which also suffered misfortune.  The  

               ark was taken farther into the hill country, finally stopping at Abinadab's 

               house at Kiriath-jearim; it stayed there and was ministered to for 20 years, 

               all through Saul's reign and until the 8th year of David's reign. 

                          3 ideas are prominent in these stories.   1st, there is the virtual as-

               sociation of Yahweh and the ark.  2nd, there is the military and cultic use 

               of the ark.  3rd, there is the use of the ark as the rallying point of Israel.  

               The meaning of these legends is that Yahweh let the ark be captured in 

               order to punish Israel and its chief priestly house, and in order to show that 

               Yahweh could overcome the Philistine by his own power and make them 

               return the ark to Israel.  Yahweh regained liberty; Yahweh saved Yahweh.

                          Historically, the ark did journey to Kiriath-jearim via Beth-shemesh, 

               but this may not mean that it passed beyond Philistine control.   Even 

               though Kiriath-jearim is in Israel, the nation still lamented; this suggests

               that the ark was still very much under Philistine control.  Saul's neglect of 

               the ark may well have been the historical reason for the estrangement 

               between Samuel and Saul.  David's resolve to seek the ark and remove it 

               to Jerusalem reveals a religious spirit and an attitude toward Yahwism, 

               which are the foundation of the messianic idealization of David and his 

               house.

                                            A-67

    

                         By means of a religious procession David begins to bring the ark to 

               his new capital.   One of Abinadab's sons, Uzzah, inadvertent ly shoots out 

               his hand to steady the ark, and the shock of realizing what he had done in 

               sacred procession and before everybody's eyes kills him.  David misinter-

               prets the death to be Yahweh's anger at the removal of the ark to Jerusa-

               lem.   David himself carries the ark instead to the house of Obed-edom the

               Gittite, rather than risk the death of any of his soldiers. 

                          Obed-edom had good fortune with the ark in his possession, so 

               David changed his mind and tried again to bring the ark to Jerusalem.  

               Probably vounteers were asked for, and they were instructed to lift the ark 

               and to try to walk 6 paces in the direction of Jerusalem.  When nothing 

               happened, David proceeded, along with all the house of Israel to the city 

               of David, with sacrifices, with a royal dance in priestly garment, and with 

               shouting and trumpet.  Thus, David put Israel's most treasured religious 

               emblem at the heart of Israel's life.  The ark and David were united in Isra-

               el's new capital at Jerusalem. 

                          In Jerusalem the ark remained in a tent, and was used on a military 

               expedition against the Ammonites.  During Absalom's revolt, David orders 

               the ark returned to Jerusalem.  Some take this to mean that David freed 

               himself from the view that the ark was the guarantee of Yahweh's pre-

               sence.  He concluded that if he was ever to enjoy his kingship again, it 

               was to be in Jerusalem or nowhere.   He therefore resigns himself com-

               pletely to the will of God, and sends the ark back to Jerusalem. 

                        Finally, Solomon removes the ark from Zion to its place in the holy of 

               holies, the inner sanctuary of the temple.  No more mention of the ark is  

               made in the historical books of the Bible.  Shisak may have removed it; 

               Manasseh may have replaced it with his image of Astarte; and Josiah re-

               stored it to the temple.  Most likely it was destroyed or stolen during Nebu-

               chadnezzar's invasion.  The actual fate of the ark is a bigger mystery than 

               its origins.

                         Psalm 132 is the only Psalm that has an explicit reference to the ark.  

               The story in II Samuel and this Psalm are closely related.  The first is the 

               historical tradition of the removal of the ark to Jerusalem; the second is the 

               adaptation of the story to a worship setting for the annual celebration of 

               that removal.  David did recover the ark, and thereby signaled the national 

               liberation from the Philistine yoke. Ark, Yahweh, royal house, and Israel ex-

               isted in a new unity in Jerusalem. This unity transformed and was enriched 

               by the existing El Elyon cult of old, Jebusite Jerusalem; it broke down 

               through and after the reign of Solomon.  The unity survived spiritually in 

               the messianic prophecies of Isaiah. 

                          Since the ark was so important, it's strange that there's only one 

               Psalm that refers directly to it.   There are many places where the ark 

               could be implied by a phrase used in the word's place.  The phrase used 

               most often (225 times) in the OT is “before Yahweh,” and in many of its 

               uses the ark may be easily substituted, especially in the cultic contexts.  

               Also, in II Samuel, the name of the ark was the name of Yahweh of hosts, 

               who dwells between the cherubim.  

                         This could mean that Hebrew words for “Yahweh of hosts” were 

               actually inscribed upon the lid of the ark.  The use of “Yahweh of hosts” 

               could then be used in some cases as a veiled reference to the ark.  When

               all the veiled references to the ark of the covenant are taken into account, 

               the ark figures far more largely in the Psalms than has previously been 

               supposed.

      

       ARKITE  (ערקי)  A person living in or coming from the town of Arqa, northwest 

               of Tripolis in Syria.  In Roman times the town was famous for its Ishtar     

               (Astarte) cult. 

       ARM  (זרוע (zer o ah); braciwn (brakh ee own))  In the Bible, it is used 

               most often as a metaphor for strength, since it is the part of the body most 

               often used for putting into effect the dictates of one's will, for fighting and 

               for building.  Although the word “arm” must have been commonly used in 

               ancient colloquial Hebrew to designate the strength of men, most of the 

               time in the Old Testament, it is used for God's strength  (e.g. lightning as 

               the “descending blow of his arm;” and “ outstretched arm”).   Only in rare 

               instances is it used in its common literal meaning, and it occurs only 3 

               times in the New Testament.     

                                       A-68

       ARMAGEDDON  (הרמגדו, Mount Megiddo; Armagedwn)  In the book of   

              Zechariah, it is said to be a “Hebrew” word for the scene of the last strug-

              gle of good and evil against each other.  Unfortunately, the word does not 

              occur anywhere in Hebrew.   There are many interpretations of the word or 

              phrase, depending on how the letters might have been miscopied down 

              through the ages.  It may have to do with the city of Megiddo, or it may be a 

              misprint for the word har migdo (his fruitful mountain,” or Mount Zion).  It is 

              used in the New Testament in the Book Revelation.  It appears likely that in

              both this book and Zechariah, abounding as they do in symbolic language, 

              this term also should be meant to carry a symbolic meaning like the one 

              suggested here. 

       ARMENIA.  The King James Version translation of  Ararat.   

     

       ARMLET   (אצעדה (ets ah daw); צעדה (tseh ah daw)) A ring or band worn 

               the upper arm, as distinct from a bracelet worn on the lower arm.

  ARMONI  (ארמני)  One of 2 sons of Rizpah, Saul's concubine.  David deli-

               vered him and his brother to the Gibeonites to be hanged in order to fulfill

               vengeance for the bloodguilt of Saul's house. 

       ARMOR OF GOD  (panoplia tou qeou (pan op lee ah  tau  thay oo)).  

                          The word for armor is a fusion of 2 Greek words:  pan (all); and 

               opla (weapons).  The phrase “armor of God” refers to a soldier’s full com-

               bat gear, and is used to indicate all the resources that God makes avail-

               able to those who follow his commands. 

                          The whole armor, panoplia, is mention in 2 writings. In Luke, it de-

               scribes all the equipment with which the devil fights to protect his property 

               from seizure.  But when a stronger power enters the battle, the devil's full 

               armor is seized and his possessions are despoiled.   In the Letter to the 

               Ephesians, the warfare also rages between God and the devil.  To win, 

               one must rely on God's strength.  The armor of God includes: truth, righ-

               teousness, the gospel of peace, faith, salvation, and the Spirit.  With 

               these, prayer, trust in God, vigilance, and devotion to God's cause, Christ's 

               army can overcome every subtlety and every onslaught of the devil, but 

               only if soldiers fully utilize these weapons.

                          The battle is not a matter of virtue's overcoming vice, nor is it self-

               righteous crusade against human enemies.  It is also not a way to gain 

               mental and psychic poise; it is a way of vindicating God's power over Sa-

               tan in every situation where the believer encounters the craftiness of pri-

               mal evil.  What weapons are effective depends, not on the part of the sol-

               dier being protected, but on the force and weapons being used by the

               enemy.  God's weapons will resist all the devil's attacks.  

      ARMOR-BEARER  (נשא כלים (na si  ka leem)) A personal attendant of a  

              warrior chieftain.  The armor-bearer is attested to only in early times, being 

              mentioned in the Old Testament as a servant of Abimelech, Jonathon, Saul, 

              and Joab.   Jonathon's finished off his chief's opponents. Both Abimelech 

              and Saul ordered their armor-bearers to kill them in order to avoid capture. 

              Joab's armor-bearer, Naharai of Beeorth, was himself a mighty warrior, be-

              ing one of David's Mighty Men.

      ARMORY  (אוצר (o tsar); בית כלי (bet  ke lee); נשק (nay shek); תלפיות 

              (tal  pee yote))  An official storehouse for military weapons. With the esta-

              blishment of a standing army came the necessity for storing arms.  Armories 

              existed in Solomon's, Athaliah's and Hezekiah's reign, and still served as a

              landmark at the time of the re-building of Jerusalem's wall.  

                                        A-69

      ARMY  (חיל (khah yil), force; צבא (tsa bah), host)  The Monarchy marks the 

              beginnings of an organized army.  In patriarchal times a crisis would pro-

              mote a levy on the male membership of a clan by its chieftain.  Abram led 

              out his trained men against a coalition of kings and in typical Bedouin fa-

              shion pursued them by night, divided his 318 followers into 3 groups, and 

              brought back his relatives and all the spoil.  Various clans would co-ope-

              rate to meet a common danger.    

                         The period of the judges saw irregular troops organized along tribal 

              lines for defense and/ or plunder, volunteers serving under some popular 

              leader.  Before the time of David, soldiers had to provide their own wea-

              pons and food; on foreign soil, they would live off the land.  In times of 

              peace, such groups might pillage the countryside, or go into service of 

              some alien power.  

                         David led such a group and who eventually changed the peasant 

              kingdom of Saul into an empire with an organized army.   Saul began as 

              charismatic leader, but after his victorious return from battling the Ammo

              nites, he became king in earnest, choosing 3000 men for a standing army. 

              He led the army personally along with his son, Jonathon. Later,  Abner was 

              commander of the army, but his exact duties were not clear. 

                         David's military genius was apparent long before he became king.  

              David appointed as commander in chief Joab, whose tactical brilliance re-

              volutionized Israelite warfare and changed them from a defensive to an 

              offensive force.   David set about to consolidate his own position by the 

              creation of a bodyguard of mercenary troops composed partly of old com-

              rades from his outlaw days, and partly of Philistine, Cherethite and Pele-

              thite mercenaries.  

                         They were paid directly from the royal purse, and served not only 

              as body guard, but also to uphold the Davidic house's central authority.  

              When David had to flee because of Absalom, their loyalty remained un-

              questioned, and it was they who eventually put down the revolt and re-

              won the crown for David. Hired troops became a fixed institution with the 

              Davidic dynasty, as the ordinary Israelite was by nature anti-militaristic 

              and ill-disposed to army discipline; later, in the Northern kingdom, army 

              rule and army-led revolts only too often characterized palace government. 

                         The Israelite army essentially remained an army on foot throughout

              its history.  Since the Philistines were masters of chariot warfare, as were 

              Syrians, David knew about chariots; he wisely avoided it, mainly as imprac-

              tical in Palestine's hilly terrain.   With the establishment of an empire and 

              the consequent occupation of the Aramean plains, however, cavalry and 

              chariot corps became necessary.   His son's introduction of these expen-

              sive and impractical elements into his army certainly contributed to the 

              eventual disruption of the kingdom; later kings had to abandon chariots 

              and cavalry.  In the Northern Kingdom, chariot and cavalry was part of the 

              army at least under the kings of Ahab's line.

                         After the dissolution of the Palestinian kingdoms, separate national 

              existence, and with it the army, came to an abrupt end.  Not until the wars 

              of liberation under the Maccabees was a Jewish Army again a reality.  This 

              army was originally scattered guerrilla bands.  Under the later Hasmone-

              ans, paid Jewish and Gentile soldiers constituted a standing army.  Herod 

              the Great as a loyal vassal to Rome not only put his forces at Rome's dis-

              posal but also modeled his own troops on that of his sovereign.  The pre- 

              sence of Thracian, German, and Gaul undoubtedly helped to fan the hatred

              which the Jews felt for Herod. 

      ARNA  An ancestor of Ezra; apparently parallel to Zerahiah. 

      ARNAN (ארנן, nimble) A ancestor of Jesus ( I Chronicles 3). 

      ARNON  (ארנון)  A  perennial stream flowing from the Transjordan plateau 

              through a deep canyon into the Dead Sea from the east at a point just 

              north of its midpoint.  The Arnon divided the kingdom of Sihon from Moab, 

              and later was the southern boundary of the tribe of Reuben.  Its source is 

              near Lejjun; it flows north-northwest for about 24 km and then west about 

              an equal distance to the Dead Sea.  The canyon of the Arnon is 4 km wide

              in places, with the riverbed 500 m below the top of the cliffs. 

      AROD  (דאﬧו, hunchbacked)  Son of Gad;  ancestral head of the Arodites.  

 

                                        A-70

   

      AROER  (ערוער, juniper(?)) 1.  A well-known city situated on the Arnon 

              Gorge's northern rim, which marked the southern extremity of the Amo-

              rite kingdom of Sihon.  It was fortified by the sons of Gad, though origi-

              nally assigned to Reuben, for whom it served as the southernmost sen-

              tinel.  It was the logical starting point of David's census.   It's a short dis- 

              tance east of the main north-south route across the Arnon.   From its 

              magnificent vantage point on the canyon's lip, it commanded all cros-

              sings of the forbidding gorge.  Ruins of fortresses from the Iron Age and 

              the Nabatean periods can be seen there.

                         2. A Gilead town on the border of Gad's inheritance, near modern 

              Amman. the exact location is unknown.     3. A town in the southern country 

              of Judah, about 19 km southeast of Beer-sheba.  David sent a share of the 

              spoil taken from an Amalekite band to the elders of this town. 

      AROMATIC CANE (קנה בשם (kaw neh  ba shem), sweet (fragrant) cane) A 

              species of fragrant reed used by the Israelites as a perfume.   It is com-

              monly identified as the sweetflag. The roots are still employed in confec-

              tionery, distilling, and brewing. 

      ARPACHSHAD  (ארפכשד)  The 3rd son of Shem, the grandfather of  Eber, 

             and an ancestor of the Hebrews. 

      ARPAD  (ארפד)  A city and a minor state in the northern part of Syria; the ruins 

              are about 40 km north of Aleppo.  It is 1 of 2 proverbial examples of places 

              destroyed by the Assyrians in the mid to late 700s B.C. 

      ARRAY, BATTLE  (ערך (aw rak); מערכה  (ma ar aw kaw); חמשים (kha mi 

              sheem))  The arrangement of forces on a field of battle in readiness to 

              launch or withstand attack. 

      ARRAY, HOLY  (הדרת קדש, (ha dar at  ka desh))  An expression indicating 

              “proper attire.” 

      ARSENAL  (תלפיות (tal pee yote))  A store of battle weapons.  The meaning of 

              this Hebrew word is unknown.  

       ART  We are concerned here with the processes of painting, carving, engraving, 

              etc., and with the origin and evolution of decorative themes and pattern, 

              rather than the objects thus decorated.

                         Prehistoric Art—The earliest manifestations of artistic creativity, 

              date from the Middle Stone Age (around 8000 B.C.), when cave dwellers of 

              Mount Carmel carved and engraved their bone implements.  There are at-

              tempts at representing the human figure; the skulls of several individuals 

              are decorated with shell diadems. Neolithic Jericho around 6000 B.C. has 

              yielded several human masks.  These masks occurred apparently in groups 

              of 3—man, woman, and child.  All these objects had a ritual or magical sig-

              nificance.  Skulls found nearby had been partly completed with fine clay so 

              as to represent human features. 

                         The earliest, and outstanding, examples of wall paintings were found 

              in the ruins of Teleilat Ghassul of the Chalcolithic period (around 3500 B.C.).  

              The artists used mineral pigments, black, dark red, red, and yellow ocher, 

              and white.   One of the frescoes represents an 8-ray star around which geo-

              metrical designs were distributed irregularly. 

                         Before Palestine's settlement by Israelites, Canaanite artists drew 

              their inspiration and techniques from Mesopotamian, Egyptian, Anatolian, 

              and Aegean style.  Ancient Asia Minor's art resulted from the modification of 

              Mesopotamian themes in Hurrite, Mitannite, and Hittite workshops.  No one 

              style came out of this exchange of artistic influence between the Aegean 

              and the east Mediterranean coast.  Canaanite art flourished during the 

              Late Bronze Age  (around 1600-1200 B.C.). 

                             Ras Shamra's art from the 1400-1300s B.C. is good illustration of 

              the composite art which flourished in Canaan.  On the image of the thun-

              dergod of Ugarit, the Egyptian influence is obvious from the left shoulder 

              seen full face, while the head, body and legs appear in right profile.  But the 

              helmet, the pigtails, and the curved dagger are definitely borrowed from the 

              art of Asia Minor.   The same mixture of Egyptian and Asian features ap-

              pears, in varying proportions, in other reliefs and statues.

                                              A-71

                         Decorative patterns also reveal the composite nature of Ugaritic art.  

              On a golden plate with a hunting scene, the well-balance composition and

              dynamic character of the animal representation are typically Aegean; the 

              artificial combination of profile as described above belongs to the Egyp-

              tians, while the chariot, the harness, and the manner of hunting seem to 

              originate in the art of Asia Minor.

                         Canaanite Art— The few monuments which can be ascribed to the 

              Canaanites, are generally uninspiring imitations of foreign models and pat-

              terns.   Stone carvers from Beth-shan had sculptured steles and votive 

              plaques of limestone for the local god Mekal's temple.   One stele repre-

              sents the god in right profile.  The sculptor did his best to give the “Egyp-

              tian” look to his god.  But the full beard, the horns, and the high pointed 

              bonnet substituted for the white crown of the Pharaohs would never have 

              been dreamed of on the Nile.   A stele found at Khirbet Balu'a, carved 

              around 1200 B.C., shows a similar combination of Canaanite and Egyp-

              tian elements used by local craftsmen.

                         A bronze statuette from Megiddo that was from around the 1200s 

              B.C., shows a Canaanite deity on a throne, wearing a conical tiara. The 

              influence of Asia Minor and northern Syria on Canaanite art is undeniable

              in the case of a stone panel of a lion and a mastiff fighting found in Beth-

              shan and tentatively dated from the 1300s B.C.  Affinities with Asia Minor's

              art may be recognized also in the decoration of the so-called “altar” of 

              Taanach.

                         As for the countless clay figurines, the nature, typology, and even 

              the chronology of which are far from being well defined, they can scarcely 

              be considered as works of art, as there isn't much evidence of creativity 

              and genius in these objects or the earthenware vessels modeled in the 

              shape of grotesque human figures by local potters.  The crude Palestinian 

              substitutes for the golden masks on the royal tombs of Mycenae date from

              the end of the Late Bronze and the Early Iron Age.

                         The Canaanite ivory carvings are abundant and unusually attractive. 

              They reveal an able technique and a great ingenuity in the combination of 

              patterns drawn from different ethnic sources.   An ivory box from Tell el 

              Far'ah in the Negev has Egyptian figures in Syrian costumes surrounded 

              by Mesopotamian palm trees and the Aegean symbolism of bullocks stan-

              ding at a thicket's edge.  The object is no older than the 1100s B.C.

                         Most important is a collection of sculptured and engraved ivory in-

               lays from Megiddo.  They show a variety of decorative themes, from geo-

              metrical patterns to the palmated ornaments and spirals so common in the 

              art of Cyprus and the Phoenician coast, to Egyptian religious figures, to na-

              turalistic animal figures and scenes.   One such treasure is an ivory casket 

              decorated with sphinxes and lions carved in high relief.   The sphinxes re-

              semble more the Asia Minor sphinxes than the Egyptian ones.   Ivory car-

              ving suffered a long artistic vacuum during the time of the Israelites con-

              quest of Canaan. 

                         The art of Canaanite ivory carvers revived with the rise of the vari-

              ous western Semitic kingdoms.  Occasionally references of the decoration

              of houses and furniture by means of ivory inlays are in the Bible.  The ivo-

              ries of Arslan Tash shows many images such as sphinxes, female winged 

              figures facing one another on each side of a tree.  The images showed the 

              influence of Egyptian art from the New Empire, which itself was influenced 

              by oriental and Mediterranean sources.  The Samarian royal palace was 

              also decorated with ivory.  

                         Next, there is the art found on Canaanite painted pottery, specifi-

              cally the patterns used, their sources and development.  Around 1500 B.C., 

              there was a pottery class that showed a combination of stylized motifs with 

              realistic animal representations within panels separated by straight or wavy 

              lines, rows of triangles, checkerboard designs, etc.   

                         The motifs inside the panels, which gradually spread from Cyprus to 

              the Syro-Palestinian coast, go back to old Mesopotamian prototypes like 

              the stylized tree, the antelope or goats, and the fishing or fighting cranes 

              found in the 1000s B.C.   Another class of painted jugs and craters made 

              around 1200 B.C., with spiral decorative patterns and over-stylized large 

              birds turning their heads to smooth their feathers were found on the coastal 

              plains and thereby attributed to the Philistines.  

                             Hebrew Art—The Hebrews had no artistic tradition of their own.

              The troubled period which followed the Conquest, and which was brought

              to an end by the rise of the Davidic dynasty, wasn't favorable to artistic cre-

              ativity.  Not until Solomon's reign did art flourish again in Palestine, and still 

              the Israelites had to rely largely on foreign craftsmen, resources and 

              techniques.

                                       A-72

                         Our description of the temple's art comes to us through the eyes 

              and hands of scribes who were more concerned with conveying the “house

              of Yahweh's splendor,” than a technical or even artistic description.  It is 

              even probable that at least some of those responsible for the final redaction 

              had not actually seen the monument.  The Bible records suggest that the   

              sanctuary's inner walls, doors, passages, etc., were covered with sculp-

              tured panels of wood brightened with gold inlays.  The Hebrew terms used 

              in the description of the panels' ornamental patterns and motifs are broad 

              and not always consistently translated. 

                         There were ornaments from the plant world geometrically arranged 

              and cherubim.  The cherubim of the temple were composite creatures, with 

              human faces and wings, akin to the winged figures guarding the doorsteps 

              of the gods in the temples of Mesopotamia and Asia Minor, while the cheru-

              bim of the ark may be closer to the winged figures painted on the panels of 

              Egyptian deities' shrines.   The capitals of the pillars were also decorated 

              with ornaments from the plant world in geometrical patterns. 

                        Animal figures decorated other items in the temple, such as the “Mol-

              ten Sea” and the bronze wagons carrying water.   What is distinctive in the 

              sacred art of the Hebrews is that it involves a certain amount of removing 

              the element of myth from foreign symbols, or at least an adaptation of the 

              same into Yahweh worship.  The construction and the furnishing of the tem-

              ple and of the palaces of the kings of Judah and Israel seems to have 

              drained nearly all the artistic potential of the Hebrews. 

                         Jewish Art—Jewish artistic achievements were understandably rare 

              and poor in the postexilic period, when homecoming exiles struggled for ex-

              istence.   They are more numerous and for the most part mediocre when  

              the Jews obtained a limited autonomy under their own rulers.  Jewish art, 

              however was never entirely original.  The influence of Greek artistic expres-

              sion on even Jewish artists was pervasive.  Herod's temple decoration may 

              have been Greek art's paramount achievement, but nothing of it is left.  The 

              richest Jewish rock-cut family sepulchers toward the end of the pre-Chris-

              tian era were often adorned with columns imitated from classical 

              architecture. 

                         Some Galilean synagogue facades were lavishly decorated with 

              sculptured vegetable ornaments similar to those seen on gables of Jewish 

              rock-cut tombs, along with 7-branch candlesticks, the 6-pointed “Star of 

              David,” the Torah-shrine, and the wheeled chariot of I Chronicles.  Human 

              and animal figures are common of the Palestinian synagogues' mosaic 

              pavements of the 300 and 400s A. D.  Originally pagan motifs from mytho-

              logy such as the sun-god’s chariot, the zodiac and season figures, were 

              borrowed without qualm by Jewish artists.  Some Jews were against such 

              symbols and destroyed them. 

                         Wall frescoes executed in a technique and style similar to those of 

              Roman and Alexandrian paintings, decorated the synagogue of Dura-Euro-

              pos on the Euphrates in the 200s A. D.  They represent miscellaneous epi-

              sodes from the entire Bible, from Moses to Elijah, as well as apocryphal 

              scenes.  This was a highly appropriate use of art in a synagogue, which 

              was above all a place of instruction. 

       ARTAXERXES  1.  Artaxerxes  I (465-425 B.C.), son of Xerxes I.  He overcame 

              revolts in Egypt.  By the peace treaty of Callias (449), signed at Susa, rela-

              tions between Athens and Persia were stabilized.  Artaxerxes  I authorized 

              Ezra's mission to Jerusalem in 458.  Nehemiah's 2 missions were under his 

              reign and with his permission, the first in 445. 

                         2.  Artaxerxes II (404-359 B.C.), Darius II's son and Artaxerxes I's     

              grandson.  He crushed the rebellion of his brother Cyrus at the Battle of 

              Cunzxa in 401.  He lost Egypt probably in 402 or 401, repelled the meddling 

              of Sparta in the affairs of Asia Minor, and suppressed other rebellious move-

              ments led by local satraps.      3.  Artaxerxes III (359-338 B.C.), son of Arta-

              xerxes II.  By the use of skillful diplomacy and military force, he succeeded 

              in maintaining a superficially strong empire until he was murdered in a con-

              spiracy. 

       ARTEMAS (ArtemaV )  An early Christian.  Paul expected to send Artemas or 

              Tychicus to Titus in Crete, so that Titus could join Paul in Nicopolis. 

       ARTEMIS  (ArtemiV )  A goddess of the most diverse characteristics, wor-

              shiped more than any other female deity in Greek communities;  the equi-

              valent of the Roman Diana.  She is Apollo’s sister, daughter of Leto and 

              Zeus; the virgin huntress, protector of the chastity of nymphs and her devo-

              tees; a moon-goddess; the patroness of maidens of marriageable age, hel-

              per of women in childbirth, and the giver of a gentle death to women.  Even 

              so she retains striking aspects of savagery.  She is pre-eminently a god-

              dess of wild nature.  

                                          A-73

     

                    The Artemis of the Ephesians mentioned in Acts is not the Hellenic or 

              Latin goddess.  She is really a form of the Asian mother-goddess.  She was 

              a local goddess of Ephesus, taken over by the Greeks.  The Ephesian Ar-

              temis wasn't a virgin huntress, but a fruitful mother; not a moon-goddess, 

              but a goddess of fertility.  Her temple was a huge landholding corporation 

              served by eunuch-priests; by other attendants called Essenes; and by 

              thousands of female slaves. 

                         She was worshiped not only in Ephesus, but also in most Asia Minor 

              cities, in southern Gaul, in Syria, and in Rome.  It is probable that her pri-

              mary image, which was preserved in the Ephesus temple, was a meteorite.

              The “silver shrines of Artemis” made by Demetrius, were not images of Arte-

              mis, but were probably replicas of the primitive sanctuary which was re-

              placed by the great temple of the later period. 

       ARTILLERY  (כלי (kel ee))  See Weapons and Implements of War. 

       ARTISANS  See Crafts. 

       ARUBBOTH  (ארבות, ambush)  A town in one of Solomon's 12 administra-

               tive districts, which probably approximated the old tribal territory of Ma-    

               nasseh.  Ben-hesed, an official of Solomon's court, was charged with the 

               responsibility of collecting provisions here.  

       ARUMAH  (ארומה, lofty)  Abimelech's place of residence, after he had been 

               driven from Shechem.  The exact location of the city is unknown; it is per-

               haps halfway between Shechem and Shiloh.  

       ARVAD (ארוד, a wandering)  A city and a minor state in northern Syria on an 

               island of the same name, near the coast between Tripolis and Ladhigiyeh.

               Arvad Residents are famous as sailors and warriors and served in the 

               navy and the army of the rich city-state of Tyre. 

      ARZA  (ארצא, gracious) Elah's chamberlain at Tirzah, in whose house Elah 

              was assassinated by Zimri. 

      ARZARETH  (אחרת ארצ, another land) A distant region beyond the Euphra-

              tes River where the 10 tribes went after they were taken captive into As-

              syria, and from which they will return in the last days. 

      ASA  (אסא, (God?) has given (healed?)) 1. Son of Maacah and King of Judah 

              (southern Israel) around 913-873 B.C.   Asa reigned 41 years.   Asa was 

              Yahweh's loyal supporter and a religious reformer.   He undertook to re-

              move pagan worship and practices and to restore the worship of Yahweh 

              to its rightful place Judah.  The Chronicler reports a sweeping reformation 

              in 2 stages, which climaxed with a great sacrifice in Jerusalem in the 15th 

              year of his reign.   He removed Maacah from being queen mother be-

              cause she had made an image for Asherah, the Canaanite fertility goddess,

              and worshiped it. 

                         The border warfare with (northern) Israel continued throughout the 

              reigns of King Asa and King Baasha.  Baasha moved against Judah and 

              fortified Ramah in the territory of Benjamin.  Asa took what was left of the 

              temple treasure and sent them to Ben-hadad, king of Syria with the appeal 

              that he should break his league with Baasha, king of Israel.  Ben-hadad re-

              sponded by capturing several towns and some territory in Galilee.  Baasha 

              withdrew from Ramah and returned to Tirzah.  Asa used Baasha's building 

              materials to fortify Geba and Mizpah.  The fortifications belonging to this 

              period were very strong.

                         The Chronicler records an undated invasion of Judah by Zerah the

              Ethiopian, commander of the Egyptian frontier city of Gerar.  It was beaten 

              back, and much booty was taken.  The Chronicler adds a further note in 

              the form of a prophecy of Hanani the seer, condemning Asa for his reli-

              ance upon Syria; Asa put Hanani in prison.  Toward the end of his reign he 

              contracted dropsy.   The Chronicler saw in this the punishment of God. 

              Asa was buried with royal honors in a tomb which he built for himself in the 

              city of David.

                                                A-74

                        2.  A Levite son of Elkanah, ancestor of Obadiah, who lived in one of 

              the villages of the Netophathites.

      ASAHEL (עשהאל, God has made)  1.  Joab’s and Abishai’s brother, Zeruiah’s 

              (David’s sister) sons.  After the Battle of Gibeon, when Abner and his forces 

              were routed by Joab, Asahel “swift of foot as a wild gazelle,” pursued relent-

              lessly the fleeing Abner.  After warning him off twice, Abner speared him. 

              This started a blood feud with Zeruiah’s sons and resulted in Abner’s mur-

              der at Hebron.  Chronicles has Asahel serving as the commander of 24,000 

              men for the 4^th month (i.e. after his death), possibly to honor him posthu-

              mously.

                         2. A Levite who, in company with the princes of Judah and priests,

              instructed the people in the law in an itinerant teaching mission in Jehosha-

              phat's 3rd year of rule.      3. A subordinate overseer who assisted in religi-

              ous collections during Hezekiah's reign.     4. The father of Jonathon, who 

              opposed the formation of the Jerusalem commission to consider the cases 

              of the Jews who had married foreign wives in the time of Ezra.  

       ASAIAH  (עשיה, Yahweh has made)  1.  An official under Josiah; in the dele-

              gation sent to Hulda the prophetess regarding the law book.     2.  One of 

              the “head of families” or chieftains, in the tribe of Simeon.      3.  Son of 

              Haggiah; chief of the Levitical group called the sons Merari and thus 

              among those who helped David bring the ark to Jerusalem.     4.  The first-

              born of the Shilonites, as listed in Chronicles among those who returned 

              from the Babylonians captivity.  Nehemiah lists him as Maaseiah. 

      ASAPH (אסף, possibly Yahu has gathered to himself)  1.  Apparently the father 

              or ancestor of the Joah, who was King Hezekiah's recorder.

                         2.  The founder of one of 3 chief families or guilds of temple musici-

              ans.   Whether or not Asaph was himself was actually a Levitical remains 

              unknown; he was possibly a contemporary with David, according to the 

              Chronicler.  In his history of Judah, Asaph’s sons participated in nearly 

              every major temple celebration.   Because of their evident importance in 

              the Chronicler's view, it has been suggested that he was a member of this 

              guild.  Their musical function was referred to in some instances as 

              prophesying.

                         3.   Someone mentioned in I Chronicles, whose name should proba-

              bly read “Abiasaph.”

                         4.  The “keeper of the king's forests,” probably in Lebanon, to whom 

              the Persian king sent a letter by Nehemiah, ordering in timber for Jerusa-    

              lem's reconstruction. 

       ASAREL  (אשראל)  One of 4 sons of Jehallelel in the genealogy of Judah. 

       ASCENSION.  (עלה (aw law); anabainein (an ab ah ee nay een); 9 other 

              Greek words are translated as “ascension,” rising up or being taken up)  A 

              voyage from the earth to heaven above; Christ's exaltation after humilia-

              tion, on which the transcendence of Christian existence is based.

                        A divinity's ascension is a widespread mythological idea.  It appears

             in 2 Old Testament books, 16 apocryphal books, and 6 New Testament 

             books.   This tradition merged with that of the soul's ascent in ecstasy, or 

             at death, which developed in the Zoroastrian Avesta, Mithraism, Mandae-

             ism, and Gnosticism into a detailed voyage through several spheres or 

             levels of heaven.   Theology which blended all the above religious disci-

             plines together developed the pattern of descent from heaven and ascent 

             to heaven for describing the Gnostic “Redeemer,” as well as the divine 

             men of the Greek age.

                        When earliest Christology identified Jesus with the Son of man ex-

             pected shortly from heaven, the theological necessity of the Ascension  

             was apparent.  In order for the Son of man to have dominion, glory, a     

             kingdom, and subservience of all, ascension was necessary.   As these 

             functions progressively transferred from the future to the present, Ascen-

             sion became Jesus' decisive subjugation of and revelation to the spirit 

             world controlling the cosmos.

                        The Ascension becomes the key to all spiritual gifts—i. e. the reli-

             gious experience—of the church.  It thus tends to replace the Second Co-

             ming as the beginning of Christ's kingdom.  When the Ascension is cast 

             in the Greek pattern of descent and ascent, it becomes the form in which

             Jesus finds a place within Gnosticism.   In the humiliated Christ's tran-

             scendence over the world is humankind's hope of rising to true selfhood. 

                                                  A-75

                     The perversion of the true Christian meaning by heretics in Paul's 

            congregations focuses on the need to clarify Ascension’s meaning.  

            They took Christ's enthronement for the finality of God's victory and ig-

            nored the persisting ambiguities of human existence; they rejected the     

            world's end and the Second Coming.  Since baptism meant union with 

            Christ, they interpreted their dying with Christ as the end of their finitude.  

            They assumed they had moved beyond the historicity of human exis-

            tence and were above suffering service.

                       In opposition to this, Paul kept the idea of the end of the world and 

            the Second Coming, not as an inconsistent vestige of mythology or of 

            Jewish thinking, but rather a position which in his situation was neces-

            sary to preserve a valid understanding of man's situation in the world.  

            Within this life, our union with Christ identifies us with his position in this 

            life (i.e. being on the way to the Cross). 

                        His enthronement in heaven as Lord of the cosmos means that 

            human existence is ultimately under the control of the Humiliated, the 

            Crucified, the Obedient One.  Faith in Christ's ascension thus means not 

            only that his service and suffering were his freedom and his victory, but 

            that in his “obedience unto death,” the path of transcendence within ser-

            vice and suffering is revealed as a reality for us.  Paul's position that our 

            ascension hasn't already happened so as to remove us from historical 

            involvement, but rather awaits us, gives transcendent meaning to our 

            service and suffering in the world. 

 

     ASCENT  (מעלה (ma ah le); katabasiV (kat a bas sees))  An ascending 

             road stairway; specifically, a mountain pass. The terms “ascent” and “de-

             scent” apply in general to any roadway by which one goes up or down.  

             Thus David left Jerusalem by the “ascent of the Mount of Olives,” and 

             Jesus came toward the city by the descent of the same mountain.

                        The principal Israelite occupation of Palestine was in the rugged 

             mountains west of the Jordan and the passes by which the roads entered

             the mountains were of great economic, geographic, and military impor-

             tance.  They were usually called “ascents,” since they were entrances to 

             the mountain range.  The Jordan’s rift valley has steep cliffs through 

             which travel is possible along secondary rifts that run into the valley at 

             right angles. 3 of these rifts into the Judean mountains are called ascents: 

             Ascent of Acrabbim; Ascent of Ziz; Ascent of Adummim (blood), so called 

             because of the red soil; it formed the northern boundary of Judah. 

     ASCENTS, SONGS OF.  (המעלות שיר (sheer  ham ma ah lowt))  The title 

             of the Psalms forming the group of Psalms 120-134, which is part of the 

             canonical psalter. The meaning of “Ascent” is not clear.  One possibility is 

             that they are songs of procession, either for ascending to the temple, or 

             for pilgrims ascending to Jerusalem. (See also Biblical entry on Degrees, 

             Songs of). 

     ASENATH.  (אסנת, belonging to, the servant of Neith (goddess))  Daughter 

             of Potphera, priest of On.  The Pharaoh  gave her to Joseph, son of Jacob

             as a wife, and she became the mother of Ephraim and Manasseh. 

     ASER  Taken as a misspelling for either “Hazor,” or “Asher.” 

     ASHAN (עשן, smoke)   A city about 2.4 km northwest of Beer-sheba, located

             in the Shephelah  and originally assigned to Simeon.  It was later desig-

             nated as a Levitical city of Judah in David's reorganization.   It is men-

             tioned as one of the places David roamed with his men during his outlaw 

             period.  

     ASHARELAH  (אשראלה, upright towards God)  One of the sons of Asaph 

             who prophesied with musical instruments in the temple under the direction 

             of the king. 

     ASHBEA (אשבע)  In the King James Version, the name of an otherwise un-

             known family of linen workers.  In the New Revised Standard Version, it is

             the name of their hometown, Beth-ashbea, an otherwise unknown town, 

             most likely in the Shephelah. 

     ASHBEL (אשבל, having a long upper lip) The 2nd or3rd son of Benjamin, 

             ancestor of the family of Ashbelites.

                                           A-76

     

     ASHDOD (אשדוד, fortress(?))  One of 5 principal cities of the Philistines; the

            northern most of the 3 coastal cities.  It lay about 5 km inland, halfway be

            tween Gaza and Joppa.  It was reputed to be a very old city, once occu-

            pied by the primitive Anakim.  While assigned the Judah tribe, it remained

            in Philistine control. 

                         When the ark was captured, it was taken to Dagon’s temple in this 

            city.   Because of ill omens, it was moved to Gath.  Judah's king Uzziah 

            (783-742 B.C.) conquered Ashdod and the surrounding territory.  They 

            were soon independent again, and revolted against Sargon II.  Even after

            a forced king change, the city still revolted, and Sargon launched a cam-

            paign to conquer it and Gath and make it into an Assyrian province.

                   In 701 B.C., Ashdod was still loyal to Assyria; it paid its tribute to 

            Sennacherib and received some of Judah's territory.  Esarhaddon (680-

            669) and Ashurbanipal (668-633) collected tribute from Ahimilki, king of 

            Ashdod.  The Egyptian king Psamtik I (663-610) laid siege to Ashdod for

            29 years.  In spite of problems, Ashdod seems to have been the stron-

            gest of the Philistine cities in the Persian period.  (See also the entry in 

            the Old Testament Apocrypha / Influences Outside the Bible section of the 

            Appendix.).

                        During the revolt against the Romans of 66-70 A.D., there was ap-

            parently enough Jewish influence in Azotus (Ashdod) for Vespasian to 

            march against the city and leave a Roman garrison there.  Eusebius men-

            tions it as still being an important town at the beginning of the 300s. It had 

            Christian bishops from the 300s to the 500s.  Today it is only a small 

            village. 

     ASHDOTH-PISGAH  (הפסגה אשﬢות, springs (or slopes) of (Mount ) 

             Pisgah). 

     ASHER (אשר, happy, blessed)  The 8th son of Jacob, born of Leah's maid 

             Zilpah, the younger brother of Gad, and ancestor of 1 of the 12 tribes. 

                        As part of the Leah group of tribes, its territory laid on the wes-

             tern slopes of the Galilean highland with Zebulun and Naphtali as neigh-

             bors to the east.  It had close contact with the seacoast and the maritime

             state of Tyre and so wasn't safe from foreign influences.  Asher was con- 

             sidered half-caste and not truly Israelite, and so it was not loved or re-

             spected by other Israelites.

                       It is not surprising that the Song of Deborah criticizes Asher for sit-

             ting still at the seacoast instead of taking part in the struggle for freedom 

             against Canaanite kings.  It did respond as part of Israel's tribal govern-

             ment to expel the Midianites under Gideon's leadership.  Asher was the 

             only tribe to immediately recognize Ishbaal's kingship instead of David's.

             It was a district in the reign of Solomon.  The later Old Testament litera-

             ture mentions Asher only in lists and in list-like material.  The New Tes-

             tament names Asher after Gad in the Revelation and ascribes the prophe-

             tess Anna to the tribe of Asher. 

     ASHERAH (אשרה)  A Semitic goddess, and the cult object by which she was

             represented.  Scholars aren't certain as to the meaning or origins of this 

             word, so there are a variety of words used to translate it.  Sometimes it is

             translated as “groves” or “trees;” it could refer merely to a sacred area or 

             object.  The New Revised Standard Version uses the word for both the 

             goddess and the cult object and makes no attempt to distinguish between

             the two.

                        Asherah” was considered either a confusion with “Astarte,” or not 

             even the name of a goddess until it was found in the Ras Shamra Texts 

             that there was a goddess distinct from Astarte worshiped by Amorites or 

             Canaanites in various parts of the Near East.   Babylonians worshiped 

             Ashratum; southern Arabians worshiped Athirat as the consort of the moon-

             god.  It is probable that Asherah also appears in an Aramaean magical text 

             from Arslan Tash.   As the Ugarit goddess Athirat, she was the mother-god-

             dess, consort of El, mother of 70 gods including Baal.

                        In the Old Testament (OT), it is apparent that the Hebrew writer 

             didn't always make a distinction between the deity and its images.   The 

             form of the cult object and its use in the worship of Asherah are not de-

             scribed in the OT.  No object has been found by archaeology that could 

             be called with certainty an Asherah.  From a study of the verbs used in 

             connection with the Asherah it is clear that it was an object which could 

             be constructed and destroyed by man; it was not a tree, but was made 

             of wood or contained wood, and could be burned; it was an object that 

             stood upright.  Various proposals are: a plain pole, a carved pole, a staff, 

             a triangle on a staff, a cross, a double axe, a tree, a tree stump, a head-

             dress for priests and a wooden image. 

                                        A-77

                         Asherah was not known to the patriarchs and was not the invention

              of the Hebrew people but was adopted from neighboring people.  The 

              object appears to have been known in Palestine from the 900s to the 500s 

              B.C.  In Judges, there was an association of worship between Baal and 

              Asherah.  They were usually referred to as “Baals” and “Asherahs,” which 

              indicates that each locality had its Baal and its Asherah.  There is no men-

              tion of Asherah during the reigns of the United Monarchy (Saul, David, and 

              Solomon).

                         Asherah worship and objects existed in both the southern and nor-

              thern kingdoms after the splitting of the United Monarchy at places such as 

              Samaria, Bethel, and Jerusalem.  As an important fertility deity of the Phoe-

              nicians and Canaanites, she would represent a formidable rival to Yahweh

              under the sponsorship of the Phoenician princess Jezebel, wife of King

              Ahab of (northern) Israel in the mid-800s B.C.  She had 400 prophets of 

              Asherah who ate at her table.  During Rehoboam's reign, people built for 

              themselves high places, and pillars and Asherim on every high hill and un-

              der every green tree.  Josiah's reformation in the 600s B.C. attempted to 

              stamp out this goddess-worship, for whom vessels had been made.

                         In the OT, Asherah are mentioned either in order to condemn her or 

              to praise men like Elijah, Asa, and Josiah, who attempted to destroy her 

              cult among the Israelites.  The antipathy towards Asherah by Hebrew lea-

              ders was due to the fact the goddess and the cult object were associated 

              with a foreign people’s fertility religion.  They involved a mythology and 

              cult practices which were obnoxious to the champions of Yahweh.

      ASHES  ( a. אפר, (ay fer); b) דשן (daw shane); c) פיח (pee akh)) 

                         The uses of ashes for ritual purposes was not peculiar to the 

              Hebrews; it has been observed among the primitive Arab tribes, and per-

              haps could have been found among the Phoenicians.

                         a)  This Hebrew word is used most often and refers to ashes as a 

              sign of mourning and penitence, a way of hiding the face.  A word with 

              the same consonants but different vowels referred to burnt offering ashes 

              having a purifying effect, and in designating ashes produced by the bur-

              ning of vessels used in pagan worship. 

                         b)  This word was used to refer to the ashes formed by a mixture 

              of burned fuel and fat resulting from sacrifice at altars and from burnt 

              corpses.  

                         c) This word means the kiln ashes that were used by Moses to 

              produce boils among the Egyptians.

      ASHIMA (אשימא)  A deity worshiped by the colonists from Hamath, settled 

              in Samaria by Assyria after 722 B.C.

      ASHKELON  (אשקלון)  1 of the 5 principal cities of the Philistines and the 

              only 1 of the 5 located on the seacoast.  The site is about 19 km north 

              of Gaza and 16 km south of Ashdod.

                         Ashkelon has had a long and rich history.  It is first mentioned in 

              the Execration Texts of the Egyptian Middle Kingdom around 1850 B.C., 

              along with Jerusalem as one of the rebellious elements in Egypt's em-

              pire.  In the Amarna age, around 1375 B.C., the city, though affected by 

              the rebellion, seems to have remained loyal to Egypt.  However, it revol-

              ted against Ramses II, who took it by storm around 1220 B.C.  There was 

              Egyptian religious influence in the city as late as 1200 B.C.

                         At this point the Philistines came and the biblical record begins. 

              Ashkelon and her sister cities were in territory Joshua didn't take.   During 

              the Judges' times, Saul, and David, Ashkelon was definitely a Philistine

              city.   Nothing more is heard of the city until the Assyrian period.  Mitinti of 

              Ashkelon revolted against Tiglath-Pileaser III and then went insane and 

              was succeeded by his son Rukibtu.  Later we find Siqia in control of Ash-

              kelon and several nearby places.  He refused to yield to Sennacherib and

              was deported with his whole family to Assyria.  Shar-ruludari, son of Ru-

              kibtu, was restored to the kingship as an Assyrian vassal in 701 B.C.  

              Later, King Mitinti paid tribute to Esarhaddon and Ashurbanipal.

                         After the Egyptians' defeat at the battle of Carchemish, the Chal-

              deans and Nebuchadrezzar demanded submission and tribute of all the 

              Palestinian states.  Apparently Ashkelon alone refused on this occasion.  

              Nebuchadrezzer “turned the city into a mound and a heap of ruins.” In the 

              Persian period, the city was under the control of Tyre in the Persian peri-

              od. (See also the entry in the Old Testament Apocrypha/ Influences Out-

              side the Bible section of the Appendix.). 

                                                               A-78

                         In 66 A.D., when war against Rome broke out, the Jews attacked 

              and partially destroyed Ascalon; but the city recovered and repulsed with 

              great slaughter a later Jewish attack.  By the 300s, Ascalon's enthusiastic 

              paganism had given way to Christianity, and the city had become a bisho-

              pric.  For Moslems it became the “bride of Syria” in the 600s.  It held out 

              against the Crusaders until 1153.  Saladin regained it in 1187, after the 

              battle of the Horns of Hattin, and broke down its walls in 1191 to prevent it 

              being used as a stronghold; what remained was dismantled by Sultan Bai-

              bars in 1270.  Since then it has been a largely uninhabited ruin.

       ASHKENAZ (אשכנז) The son of Gomer and a kingdom or province associa-

              ted with Ararat and Minni.  The people of this kingdom were known as Scy

              thians to the Assyrians, whom they fought in conjunction with the Manne-

              ans.  They were responsible for the fall of Uratu and Assyria.

       ASHNAH  (אשנה, fortified)  The name of 2 cities in Judah, both in the She-

               phelah below the mountains.  Their location is uncertain; one was probably

               on the edge of Judah and its coastal plain while the other was probably be-

               tween Lachish and Hebron.

       ASHPENAZ  (אשפנז)  Nebuchadnezzer's chief eunuch, who was commanded 

              to bring handsome, intelligent Jewish youths to his palace in the book of 

              Daniel.

       ASHTAROTH (עשתרות)  1.  The plural form of “Ashtoreth,” the name of the 

              Canaanite fertility-goddess; this shows that each locality had their own  

              Astarte, instead of the goddess Anat worshiped elsewhere in the Near 

              East. In the Hebrew settlements, it is said that the Israelites practiced the 

              cult of Baalim and Ashtaroth, which might mean that they observed seaso-

              nal rituals of the fertility cult without actually worshiping the god and god-

              dess.  Samuel and Israel's confession of apostasy probably refers to this 

              practice.

                         2.  A place name compounded with the goddess Ashtaroth's name.

               It is the name of a town in the Transjordan.  It was one of the Israelite 

               cities of refuge and was also known as Rephaim.

                         3.  A common noun meaning either “young” or "breeding stock.

       ASHTEROTH-KARNAIM  (עשתרות קרנימ)  An important fortress city in  

               Gilead, about 32 km east of the Sea of Galilee and 4.8 km north of Ash-

               taroth. Excavation of both ruins shows that the 2 cities seldom flourished

               at the same time; most often only one site was populated at a time.

                          This city was occupied by the Rephaim or prehistoric inhabitants of 

               Canaan before 1600 B.C., when it was attacked by Chedorlaomer and 

               his confederate kings.  It was so thoroughly destroyed that it wasn't occu-

               pied for over 300 years, from 1600 B.C. until the time of the Israelite con-

               quest.   Either Syria (Aram) or Israel rebuilt it; occupation of it went back 

               and forth between the 2 nations.  King Jeroboam II of (northern) Israel 

               (781-741 B.C.) captured it together with the nearby Lo-debar.

       ASHTORETH (עשתרת)  The deliberate mispronunciation of the name of the 

              Canaanite fertility goddess Athtarath.  It was customary for Hebrew 

              scribes to label a pagan deity as shameful by combining consonants of 

              the deity's name with the vowels of the Hebrew word bosheth (shame).

                          Solomon patronized this goddess' cult; later, her cult place on the 

              “Mount of Corruption” was abolished.  In Canaan the goddess is first en-

              countered in the Ras Shamra Texts and is associated with Baal as the 

              giver of life or death.   Apparently the functions of Ashtoreth as the patro-

              ness of fertility were taken over by Anath, Baal's sister.   There is a later 

              version in an Egyptian papyrus from the Nineteenth Dynasty, wherein 

              Athtarath is the bride claimed by the tyrant Sea.  

                         The goddess also appears in Egyptian inscriptions and sculpture;

              one such piece from the Ptolemaic period at Edfu depicts her with the 

              head of a lion.  In another, the goddess wears her hair in the fashion of 

              stylized horns characteristic of the Egyptian cow-goddess Hathor; Ash-

              toreth is also associated with the Phoenician god of healing, Eshmun.

                         In Palestine, fertility cults used figurines, usually made of clay to 

              represent nude females with their sexual anatomy emphasized.   They 

              may represent Ashtoreth, or they may be models of concubines to be 

              placed in the tomb along with the deceased.  Judging from the great 

              number of these figurines that were found, they appear to have been 

              associated with home use, such as to ask for children, rather than for 

              use in sanctuary.    

                                            A-79

       ASHURBANIPAL (Assur is the creator of the heir)  King of Assyria (668-629(?) 

               B.C.);  son of Esarhaddon.   He prided himself on his literacy and had an 

               extensive library. He succeeded in penetrating Egypt beyond Memphis 

               and in destroying Thebes around 663 B.C.  His eastern frontiers in Asia 

               Minor were threatened by Cimmerians, his northern borders by Manneans. 

                          Ashurbanipal was the last of Assyria’s great kings.  The main event 

               of his reign was his long-drawn-out fight with the coalition which his bro-

               ther Shamashshumukin king of Babylon had set against him.  In 652 B.C.,

               Shamashshumukin apparently thought that the time had come for a rebel-

               lion against his brother.  He revolted even though his capital was surroun-

               ded by strong, loyal Assyrian garrisons, and his allies were unreliable Ela- 

               mites, and Chaldean tribes whose military value against disciplined Assy-

               rian troops was questionable.  

                          First, the army of Shamashshumukin and his allies failed to con-

               quer such essential cities as Ur and Uruk.  Then, the Elamite king was de-

               feated by the Assyrians and unable to continue fighting.  The Babylonian 

               king was forced into a defensive fight, which sealed his doom.  An expedi-

               tionary force of Arabs was defeated and driven into Babylon.  The city was 

               under siege for 2 years; although it was defended with courage and tena-

               city, it surrendered due mainly to famine in 648 B.C. 

                          Ashurbanipal punished first the Arabs and then Elam, the latter en- 

               ding with the destruction of Susa.   The written history of Assyria seems to 

               end in 639 B.C., although Ashurbanipal ruled well beyond this time; no one 

               knows why.  The Assyrian Empire disintegrated suddenly under his son 

               Sinsharishkun (627-612).   Babylonia fell to Nabopolassar and in 612, the 

               Assyrian capital, Nineveh, was destroyed by the Medes.

       ASHURITES (אשורי)  A people in northern Israel mentioned between Gilead 

               and Jezreel as part of the kingdom of Ishbosheth.

       ASHVATH  (עשות)  One of the sons of Japhlet in the genealogy of Asher.

       ASIA  (Asia )  In the New Testament, it is normally a province in Asia Minor.  

               At Pentecost, there were Jews in Jerusalem who had come from Asia.  

               On Paul's 2nd missionary journey he and Timothy were forbidden by the 

               Spirit to preach in Asia.  During his 3rd journey Paul spent over 2 years in 

               and around Ephesus.

                          An important development for early Christianity was the rise of 

               emperor-worship, which became popular and powerful in Asia, the 1st pro-

               vince to ask permission to worship the living emperor.  Augustus granted 

               this request to non-Romans in 29 B.C.   By the end of the first 100 years

               after Christ, emperor worship had incited hostility toward the Christians, 

               who refused to participate.

                          Asia is the center of interest for the author of the book of Revela-

               tion.   The 7 churches which he addresses are all in the Asia province's 

               western portion and probably the churches he knew best:  Ephesus, 

               Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea.  Other 

               Asian cities mentioned in the New Testament are Colossae, Hierapolis, 

               Adramyttium, and Assos. 

       ASIARCH  (Asiarch)  The precise meaning of this word is not clear, and it 

               may have changed over time.  It may be stated with assurance that the 

               Asiarchs were men of wealth and public influence in the cities they repre-

               sented or served, and that some may have been of provincial importance.  

               Although the term of office was one year, reelection or reappointment was

               possible; the title might survive the term of office.  They weren't technically

               a part of the structure of Roman provincial government, but were accepted, 

               appointed, or elected as protectors and promoters of the expanding imperi-

               al cult.  This meant they would often pay a large portion of the expenses of 

               the cult festivals, or they might repair a public bath at their own expense. 

                          It was an Asiarch who, in defiance of the mob refused to let loose a 

               lion on the theologian Polycarp, on the grounds that he had already closed 

               the sports.   And if Luke and his first readers were familiar with Asiarchs, 

               mentioning their support of Paul lends credence to the Christian cause.  

               Luke also mentions their support of Paul against the Ephesian rabble.

       ASIEL  (עשיאל, may God be what he's made of )  Great-grandfather of Jehu

               in a list of Simeonite chieftains and their conquests in the time of Hezekiah. 

               (See also the entry in the Old Testament (OT) Apocrypha/ Influences Out-

               side of the OT section of the Appendix.) 

                                                              A-80

    

       ASMODEUS (AsmodeuV )  The Destroyer and demon of anger. An evil being 

               described in later Jewish tradition as “king of the demons;” sometimes 

               identified with Beelzebul  ((See also the entry in the Old Testament (OT) 

               Apocrypha/ Influences Outside of the OT section of the Appendix.)

          

       ASNAH  (אסנה, he who belongs to Nah)  The head of a family of temple ser-

               vants who returned to Palestine after the Exile. 

       ASP  (פתן (peh then))  English term for one of several poisonous snakes, per-

               haps the common European viper or adder, and with special reference to 

               the cobra.  Asp is used poetically as in the wine of the enemy is the “cruel 

               venom of asps” and the venom of the asps is under the tongue of the un-

               righteous. 

    

       ASPATHA  (אספתא)  One of the ten sons of Haman who were killed by the 

               Jews in retaliation for threatening them with genocide. 

       ASRIEL  (אשריאל, God has filled with joy)  A descendant of Manasseh; one

               of the Gileadites found in Moses' second census.  He is the founding an-

               cestor of the Asrielites, who were allotted land by Joshua. 

       ASS  (חמור (kham ore))  Centuries before Israel's patriarch, other people had 

               domesticated the ass and it had become part of the civilized life of Western 

               Asia.

                         As a work animal the ass was used for carrying burdens, and also 

               for agricultural operations.  The proverbial strength of the ass was appro-

               priately used to describe Issachar's strength.  There was a prohibition 

               against plowing with an ox and an ass together.  As a riding animal, the 

               ass was controlled by a bridle and was the animal normally ridden by peo-

               ple.  Even people of influence used the ass; the fact that Zion's future king 

               would come riding an ass emphasizes his intent to seek peace.  The Bible 

               indicates that the Hebrews of the 800s B. C. were familiar with the meat of 

               the ass.  But the dietary norms treated the ass as unclean and therefore 

               unacceptable as food.

                          Possession of an ass was almost the bare minimum for existence; 

               and wealth was indicated by the ownership of large numbers of animals.  

               In the summary of the resources of the early post-exilic Judean community, 

               the numbers of asses far exceed those of all other animals.  The ass, like

               the ox, shared in the rest of the Sabbath day.  The ass on the Sabbath re-

               ceived the care necessary for its survival. 

       ASSASSINS  (sikarioi, (si kar ee oy), dagger men)  In Palestine this term 

               was used by the Romans with reference to those Jews who engaged in 

               organized political killings in which surprise was a key element.  The Ro-

               mans considered such killings criminal.  

                          Josephus uses the name to identify a particular revolutionary party 

               in the war of 66-70 A. D.  He traces their origins back as far as the national 

               reaction against the Roman census.  Those who submitted to the census 

               were treated as criminals by the sicarii.  The sicarii of Josephus held out 

               until the last against Romans at Masada, who did not breach their defen-

               ses until 73 A.D.  When Romans broke through they found that the sica-

               rii had systematically carried through a mass act of self-destruction.  Even 

               Josephus represents this deed as motivated by patriotism and devotion to 

               God and God's Law.

                          The sicarii are probably best understood as patriotic Jews living in

               the main stream of the Phineas-Maccabean tradition of zeal for the law in 

               response to Roman occupation.  There are ample examples in the history

               of occupation of similar behaviors of others as assassins, robbers, and 

               martyrs. 

       ASSAYER  (בחון (baw khone), examine, test)  One who tests ores for their 

               gold and silver content.  Jeremiah's prophetic task is to be an assayer of 

               the people.  He finds them entirely base metal. 

    ASSEMBLY  See Congregation. 

                                                A-81

       

     ASSHUR  (אשון)  1.  One of Shem's sons; the founding ancestor of the 

               Assyrians.     2. The Assyrian pantheon's chief god; the name appears as

               part of many proper names (e.g. Ashur-banipal).     3.  A city in Assyria 

               along the banks of the Tigris; one of 4 that were Assyria’s capital during 

               its history. 

       ASSHURIM  (אשורימ)  An obscure tribe, probably northern Arabian, living in

               the south of Palestine.  They are not to be confused with the Assyrians.

       ASSIR (אסיר, prisoner, captive)  1.  A son of Korah and a great-great-grand-

               son of Korah, as listed in I Chronicles.     2.  A son of King Jeconiah; per-

               haps he was born in captivity.  But he is mentioned nowhere else.  

       ASSOS  (AssoV )  A seaport of Mysia in the Roman province of Asia.  The city 

               was ideally located on the terraces of a steep volcanic cone with a beauti-

               ful view about 0.8 km from the sea.  It was naturally protected by the steep

               ascent; its defenses were strengthened by a city wall two miles long and 

               almost 20 m. high. Its harbor was formed by a long arm of land built out in-

               to the sea.  Paul traveled south overland to Assos from Troas, while his 

               companions went on the longer sea route. 

       ASSYRIA AND BABYLONIA.  Designation of 2 civilizations which flourished in

               Mesopotamia from the middle of the 2000s B. C., up until the last centuries 

               before the Christian era.  They take their names from their capital cities, 

               Asshur and Babylon.  Their civilizations rivaled in age that of Egypt, which 

               existed at roughly the same time.  They surpassed Egypt in respect to the 

               influence they had on surrounding civilizations.

                         List of Topics—1. Assyria and Babylonia's Biblical Impact   

           2. History of Babylonia:  Sargon-Hammurabi (2350-1750 B.C.)   

           3. History of Babylonia:  Hammurabi-Dark Ages (1750-1151 B.C.)

           4. History of Babylonia:  Nebuchadrezzar I-Nabonidus (1146-

           539 B.C.)     5. History of Assyria:  Introduction;     6.  Early Dyna-

           sties of Assyria:  Period of non-dynastic kings;      Dark Age    

           7. Development of Assyrian Foreign Policy Concepts;

           8. Sargonide Dynasty and the Last Century of Assyrian

           Monarchy;     9. The Country: Tigris and Euphrates Rivers 

           10. Landscape and Agriculture  

    

                            11. The People;     12. The Language;      13. Writing Sys-

          tem and Materials: Scribes and Cuneiform;     14. Writing System

          and Materials:  Bi-lingualism, Word Signs, and Clay;     

          15. Nonliterary Texts: Bureaucracy and Diplomacy;      

          16. Nonliterary Texts:  Royal Letters; Law Codes  

          17. Nonliterary Texts:  Treaties; Royal Land Grants; and Legal 

          Documents;    18. Religious Texts;     19. Omen Literature;             

                   20. Secular Literature: Epic of Gilgamesh;

          21. Secular Literature: Other Epics;

          22. Secular Literature: Royal Inscriptions;

          23. Secular Literature:  Wisdom Texts; Humor

          24. Institutions;     25. King and Palace;    

          26. City and Temple;  27. Mesopotamian Gods; God Images;     

          28. Arts and Culture;     29. Sciences;     30. Historical Sources; 

          31. Archaeological Notes    

                                                    A-82

                    1.  Assyria and Babylonia's Impact on the Bible—These civiliza-

              tions' direct impact on Biblical events began with Ashurnasirpal II (884- 

              860).  From the reign of Omri (876-869) and his son Ahab (869-850), to 

              Hezekiah (715-687 B. C.) and Manasseh (687-642), Assyria posed an im- 

              mediate threat to Judah and Israel, but one that varied with the fluctuations

              in Assyrian military might.  Ashurna-sirpal II's son Shalmaneser III (859-824) 

              laid siege to Damascus and reached the Mediterranean; both father and 

              son collected tribute from Israel and the Phoenician coastal cities. 

                         The next Assyrian king to threaten Israel was Tiglath-pileser III (745-

              727).  His son Shalmaneser V (727-722) laid siege to Samaria; his brother 

              and successor, Sargon II (721-705) finished conquering it, thereby putting 

              an end to the northern kingdom of Israel.   Sennacherib (704-681) overran 

              the southern kingdom of Judah, which had risen in revolt; Esarhaddon (680-

              669) destroyed Sidon.  Ashurbanipal (668-626?) counted on a subservient

              Judah for men and supplies in his successful campaign against Egypt. 

              Nabopolassar (626-602 B.C.) began the Babylonians' 2nd rise to political 

              power.  Babylonia, under Nebuchadrezzar, was to take up Assyrian policy 

              and to rule the Near East as far as Cilicia and Egypt, and even to conquer 

              Jerusalem in 586, which had thus far escaped conquest.

                         2. History of Babylonia:  Sargon-Hammurabi (2350-1750 B.C.) 

              Assyria and Babylonia had been long-lasting and far-reaching civilizations 

              long before they influenced Bible events.  Babylonia had climaxes of politi-

              cal power near the beginning and end of its 2,000 years of history.  The 

              names of Sargon of Agade (around 2350 B.C.) and Nebuchadrezzar (605-

              562 B.C.) characterize these 2 periods, but not much is known about 

              either them or their time periods.   The best-known period of Babylonian 

              history was right before, during, and after Hammurabi’s reign (1792-

              1750 B.C.).

                         With Uruk’s downfall and the Sumerian civilization under Lugalzag- 

              gisi, the Dynasty of Agade, founded by Sargon, achieved for the first time 

              Mesopotamian unification.  Sargon's aggressiveness, reaching beyond the 

              borders of Babylonia, was based upon the maintenance of a standing army

              supported by taxes levied and collected by a central bureaucracy.  His 

              reign of 55 years and Naram-Sin's reign of 56 years might have stabilized 

              the country if an invasion of the Guti mountaineers had not brought about 

              its ruin.

                           The Guti’s rule was broken by Utuhegal of Uruk (2125-2025 B.C.); 

              the Neo-Sumerian Empire picked up where the Agade tradition left off, with 

              an elaborate administration, and provincial governors residing as far east 

              as Elam and as far north as Asshur.  This collapsed in spectacular fashion 

              under an invasion by the Elamites.   Political power shifted slowly north-

              ward from Ur—first Isin, then Larsa, and eventually Babylon. 

                         Babylon, the youngest of these cities, gained the upper hand under 

              Hammurabi.  He defeated Larsa to the south, Eshnunna to the east, and 

              Mari to the north with wars, alliances, and political maneuvering.  All parti-

              cipants were non-Akkadian and ready to change sides or to outmaneuver 

              the enemy, bent on ensuring their hold over the city folk.  Only Shamshi-

              Adad (around 1812-1780 B.C.) of Assyria and Hammurabi of Babylonia at-

              tempted to integrate the warring city-states.

                         The famous Code of Hammurabi shows us his carefully and effici-

              ently organized administration.  His main political achievement was the 

              successful change of his realm into a territorial state ruled from a capital, 

              with all other cities on the provincial level.  This system survived the Dark 

              Ages' chaos.  After Hammurabi, political power in southern Mesopotamia 

              was firmly established in Babylon.  Yet, with all the obvious prosperity and 

              security of his reign, the year names begin to reflect an alliance of "Sumer

              and Akkad" against him.  Towards the end of his reign, the year names of 

              his last years show him clearly on the defensive.

                          3. History of Babylonia:  After Hammurabi-Dark Ages (1750-

              1151 B.C.)—Hammurabi's successors seem to have been restricted to 

              Babylonia proper.  The southernmost region, where the Sea Country was 

              protected by its marshes, was able to survive the disaster that befell the 

              Fertile Crescent and ended with the conquest of Babylon by the Hittite 

              king Murshili around 1600 B.C.  Then the Dark Age set in, not only over 

              Babylonia but also over nearly the entire Near East. 

                         The next king we have documents for is Burnaburiash II (around 

              1370-1340 B.C.) of the dynasty set up by the invading Kassites.  The docu-

              ments show a royal palace well organized with regard to the administration 

              of estates.   Kassite and Assyrian letters to Egypt show Babylonia as a 

              minor political power, but the Babylonian kings did enjoy a certain prestige.  

              There was, after nearly 500 years of rule, an increasing decline of royal au-

              thority, judging from the frequency of royal land grants to officials.  

                                                A-83

       

                          There was increasing infiltration of Arameans into open country, and 

               a subsequent interruption of communication; this further reduced the power

               of Babylon's kings.  Shutruk-Nahhunte of Elam invaded Babylonia; this 

               spelled the end of the Kassite Dynasty around 1151 B.C.

                          4. History of Babylonia: Nebuchadrezzar I-Nabonidus (1146-

               539 B.C.—Babylonia's slow comeback began with Nebuchadrezzar I's 

               (1146-1123 B.C.) victory over Elam.  The next 500 years were nearly as

               dark as the Dark Ages. Babylonian nationalism stayed alive by taking root

               in the open country, while the city dwellers preferred Assyrian rule, which 

               granted Babylon the right to do world trade through caravans that passed 

               through it.   Such trade must have brought to Babylon riches that allowed

               for rebuilding and sumptuously redecorating the sanctuaries.   When Ba-

               bylonia was incorporated into the Persian Empire much later, it was the 

               richest province.

                          Nabopolassar (626-602 B.C.) became the 1st king of a new dyna-

               sty that was to become heir to Assyrian supremacy.  The last ruler of Ba-

               bylonia, Nabonidus (555-539 B.C.) provides an odd ending to a political 

               unit that spanned nearly 2000 years.  He rose to power as a middle-aged 

               general in the confusion created by the conflicts between the short-lived 

               successors to Nebuchadrezzar II, even though he was a native of 

               Assyria. 

                          Nabonidus tried to stress the worship of the god Sin in Babylon, 

               which may have led to conflicts with the priests.  He went to visit the 

               large cities of Arabia, perhaps to promote trade, staying away from Baby-

               lon for years at a time.  At any rate, Cyrus suddenly invaded Babylonia 

               and moved, without encountering resistance, into Babylon. This was the 

               end of Babylonian sovereignty, not her aspirations to greatness.

                          5. History of Assyria:  Introduction—In Assyria's history, an es-

               sential difference can be observed between the periods before and after 

               the Dark Age (around 1600-1350 B.C.).  Before the Dark Age, there was 

               less military aggressiveness than there was after it; there was more effi-

               ciency in organizing trade relations and activities.   After the Dark Age, 

               Assyrian kings under Asshurubalit  (around 1365-1330 B.C.) succeeded 

               by means of institutionalized annual campaigns, in building up a series of 

               more or less short-lived empires; they often collapsed suddenly but were 

               quickly reconquered.   Assyria's key strength was their ability to recupe-

               rate and gain strength politically and militarily; their key weakness was 

               the curious instability of that strength. 

                          Assyrian civilization was patently dependent upon Babylon for the 

               bulk of its religious concepts, its literary traditions, etc.  But under the sur-

               face of that dependence, Assyrian remained alien.  The Assyrian king's

               position is quite different from a Babylonian king.  His relationship with 

               high officials, feudal lords, the people, and the policy of the royal admini-

               stration shows evidence of an utterly different attitude.  

                            6. Early Dynasties of Assyria:  Period of non-dynastic Kings; 

               Dark Age—Assyrian history begins with Ur-Namma, a governor the Ur III

               Empire in Asshur (2112-2095) and 2 generations after him until 2025. 

               Asshur became independent under the Puzur-Ashur Dynasty (2025-

               1809).   Its longest reign was 44 or 54 years by Niram-Sin (1872-

               1829/19.  After the empire's collapse, the city, ruled by this series of kings, 

               rose to be a center of commercial activity; Assyrian merchants lived 

               throughout Asia Minor.   The Assyrians bought and sold copper and also

               provided tin to Asia Minor for the production of bronze, and enjoyed free-

               dom of movement and communication.

                          Most important for the history of Assyria is the person and reign of 

               Shamshi-Adad (around 1812/08-1780/1776 B.C.),and his dynasty of 4 

               other kings until 1736.   Shamshi-Adad was a foreign conqueror who 

               seized Asshur.   He strove to create a territorial state, relying on his noma-

               dic and energetic followers to rule a population of different social and eth-

               nic backgrounds, improving their living conditions and relying on them to

               provide the economic basis for running his empire.  With his death, his em-

               pire disintegrated quickly.  His son, Ish-me-Dagan, couldn't hold it together.

                          From 1735-1700, 8 non-dynastic kings unrelated to any previous 

               kings ruled.  1700 marked the beginning of Bel-Bani's reign and the Ada-

               side Dynasty (1700-722 B.C.).   8 related kings ruled in the 100 years be-

               fore the Dark Age, 18 kings reigned in the 250 years of the Dark Age, 

               26 kings ruled in the Middle Assyrian Empire period after the Dark Age 

               (1363-912), and 11 Adaside kings ruled in the 1st half of the Neo Assyrian

               Empire period (911-722), ending with Shalmaneser V (727-722).

                          During the Dark Age (1600-1350), Assyria proper was incorporated 

               for quite some time into the Mitanni Empire.  Other rulers use the names of 

               Shamshi-Adad and Ishme-Dagan again during this time.  The Hittite king 

               Shup-Piluliuma took over Babylon around 1380, right before the end of the 

               Dark Age.   Ashur-uballit (1363-1328) was the first king of stature after the 

              Dark Age.  

                                             A-94

       

                         7. Development of Assyrian Foreign Policy Concepts—Early 

               on, Assyria developed a body of foreign-policy concepts that determined to

               a very large extent the history of the ancient Near East.  They fought on 

               multiple fronts.  1st, they fought the mountain people to the north and east, 

               attacking and exterminating whenever possible.  They also used forced ur-

               banization combined with building strategic roads.  Tragically, they eventu-

               ally lost that battle by destroying the Urartean state that stood between 

               them and the Medes and other tribes. 

                          2nd, they attacked Babylonia, which proved equally difficult and 

               eventually fatal.   At first they conquered Babylon under Tukulti-Ninurta I 

               (1244-1208).  On the other hand Babylon invaded Assyria, not with their 

               army, but with their culture.  Assyrian nationalists reacted violently against 

               this cultural invasion, which created a dangerous ambivalence  in Assy-

               ria's attitude toward Babylonia.   The 3rd front in the West influenced world 

               history much more than the other 2.   Carchemish was conquered by As-

               shur-ballit and Tukulti-Ninurta I.  Tiglath-pileser I (1115-1076) advanced as 

               far as Palmyra. 

                          The 1st point in Assyria's rise to power was attained when Ashur-

               uballit and Tukulti-Ninurta reached out to the West and the South.  History 

               records many invasions, defeats, marriages between the dynasties, trea-

               ties made, boundaries set.  The Aramaic invasion from the South disrup-

               ted this fragile political and economic structure.  Tiglath-pileser conquered 

               Babylonia and fought the Arameans along the Euphrates.

                          With Tukulti-Ninurta II (890-884) and Ashurnasirpal II (884-860), a 

               new spirit of aggressiveness and cruelty becomes evident in the royal in- 

               inscriptions.  Ashurnasirpal II and his son Shalmaneser III pushed into Syria 

               and the entire Mediterranean coastal region, in spite of the Aramaic kings' 

               fierce resistance.  Another outstanding conqueror among Assyrian kings 

               was Tiglath-pileser III (745-727), King of Babylon and the originator of 

               large-scale deportation of conquered people.  His son Shalmaneser V 

               (727-722) laid siege to Samaria. 

                          8. The Sargonide Dynasty and the Last Century of the Assy-

               rian Monarchy— In 722, Sargon II seized the throne from his brother Shal-

               maneser, began his reign (722-705), and also the Sargonide Dynasty of 8 

               kings in the 2nd part of the Neo Assyrian Empire Period (722-609), ending 

               with Asshur-ubalit's reign (612-609).  Sargon finished conquering Samaria.  

               Meanwhile, Egypt stirred up Palestine, Syria, Elam Babylonia, and Uratu.  

                          Sargon 1st conquered and destroyed Uratu, then Babylonia before 

               he fell in battle in a mountain campaign.   His death again brought general 

               defection and rebellion.   Sargon's son Sennacherib (704-681) had to fight 

               for his empire for a long time on all 3 fronts.  He attacked Elam with Phoeni-

               cian ships brought down on the Tigris and destroyed Babylon after many 

               battles.  He made his son Esarhaddon (680-669), who was a very pro-

               Babylonian, governor there. 

                         In the anti-Babylonian rebellion which this step caused, Sennacherib 

               was killed and Esarhaddon had to pacify Assyria. He was the first Assyrian 

               king to attack Egypt.  He destroyed Sidon in Palestine and conquered the     

               Nile Delta, but he could not stay, as he had to return and fight the Scythi-

               ans and Cimmerians in the mountains.  He died on the march to Egypt on 

               another campaign.   Before he left, he made Ashurbanipal king of the realm 

               (668-626?) and Shamashshumukin king of Babylon; the transition of power 

               went smoothly, which is unusual in Assyrian history.  After 16 years, the Ba-

               bylonian king formed an alliance with Assyrian enemies; it took 6 years of 

               civil war to subdue the rebels and destroy Babylon again.        

                         There is a strange silence about the last 20 years of Ashubanipal's 

               reign; after that Assyria fell into obscurity with appalling suddenness.  

               Nabo-polassar, representing a new aggressive Babylonia, attacked old Ba-

               bylonian cities still loyal to Assyria.  He from the south and Cyaxares the 

               Median from the north attacked and destroyed first Asshur and then Nine-

               veh (612). Asshur-ubalit's last battle in 609 ended his reign and over 1100 

               years of the ancient Assyria monarchy.  Babylonia, under Nebuchadrezzar, 

               took up Assyrian policy and ruled the Near East as far as Cilicia and Egypt.   

               They even conquered Jerusalem in 586, which had thus far escaped con-

               quest.  As mentioned earlier, the last ruler of Babylonia was Nabonidus 

               (555-539 B.C.)

                          9. The Country: Tigris and Euphrates Rivers—Geographically 

               Mesopotamia is separated from Arabia deserts and the Syrian Plateau in

               the south and west by the Euphrates' course.  Toward the north and the 

               northeast, however, the political and cultural frontiers were always unsta-

               ble in the northern foothills and valleys.  Mesopotamia's eastern border 

               extended a short distance beyond the Tigris' east bank.  The southeas-

               tern limit is the Persian Gulf and its islands and coastal regions, which 

               made up a link between the “Fertile Crescent” and the East. 

                                                A-85

                          Both Assyria and Babylonia lay within the borders of today's Iraq.  

              Assyria originally occupied only the region to the east of the middle course

              of the Tigris as far as the foot of the mountains to the east.   Later its hol-

              dings spread north and west across the land between the rivers.  Babylonia 

              occupied the land formed by the soil deposits from both rivers, south of 

              Assyria and near the Persian Gulf.

                         The Tigris and Euphrates are fed by a number of mountain streams 

              in  Armenia.  The sources of these 2 rivers are only about 24 km apart in 

              one place.   The Tigris flows east and then southeast in a swift course; it is 

              navigable in its lower reaches only by reed floats supported by inflated 

              skins.   It flows past Nineveh, Calah, and Asshur—all capitals of Assyria at 

              one time—to enter the plain near Samarra.  The changing course of the 

              lower river discouraged permanent settlement. 

                         All of the tributaries of the Tigris begin in the Zagros Mountains.  The 

              Euphrates, after leaving the mountains, runs first southwest to reach a 

              point only 150 km from the Mediterranean.  It then turns south and eventu-

              ally east; it has only the Hagur and the Belikh for tributaries.  Its course is 

              about 800 km longer than that of the Tigris; it carries less water, but its cur-

              rent is much slower, permitting navigation farther upstream.

                         Both rivers flood annually.   The rivers begin swelling with the au-

              tumn rains and increase in volume through winter and spring till the snow 

              melts in the Armenian mountains. The flood wave reaches the plains in

              April and especially May; it subsides in June.   The timing of the flood in  

              Mesopotamia isn't as favorable for agriculture as it is in Egypt.  The flooding 

              is late and requires work to prevent the fields from getting too much water.  

              The soil increases in salt content, making frequent relocations of farming 

              land necessary.   As a result, the digging of new canal systems was essen-

              tial to a good king’s economic and political program.  

                        10. Landscape and Agriculture—2 types of landscape can be seen.

              1st, there are the plains piled up by the 2 rivers, which push their silt into 

              the Persian Gulf.   Sinking of the tectonic plates counteracted this process 

              of raising the level of the land.  This land's upper levels is suitable for pas-

              ture; the lower levels were swamps and yielded cane which was used with 

              great ingenuity.   2nd, there are the fertile valleys between the hills or along 

              the tributaries of the Tigris, where rain is sufficient to grow barley and to 

              raise sheep and goats.   The area around the sources of the Habur River, a 

              Euphrates tributary, makes for the most fertile land between the 2 rivers be-

              cause of its volcanic soil.

                         In Assyria, agriculture could reasonably rely on the October and No-

              vember rains which made it possible to prepare the fields for the next har-

              vest.  In Babylonia, irrigation, if properly managed, could secure a good 

              harvest every year.  The main cereal grown was barley, emmer (primitive 

              wheat), and wheat.  Sesame seeds were the only source of vegetable oil, 

              and dates were the main source of sugar.   Onions, garlic, and leeks are the 

              vegetables most often mentioned.   Vineyards were cultivated only in Upper 

              Mesopotamia.

                         Meat was provided by goats and sheep, the latter also supplying the 

              wool that was the raw material for textiles, exported from Babylonia as far 

              away as Anatolia.   Cattle were used for plowing, and the donkey was the 

              main beast of burden.   Horses, Bactrian camels, dromedaries, and ele-

              phants were well known.  Horses acquired military importance by pulling 

              chariots and in the cavalry; they were introduced into the Assyrian army 

              after the 800s B.C.  

                         11. The People—The region's Settlement history shows many very

              old cities in southern Babylonia along the Euphrates’s lower course, and 

              very few cities elsewhere.  Northern cities of this cluster were Borsippa, 

              Babylon, Kutha, Kish, and Sippar; the central cities were Nippur; Isin; Adab; 

              and Shuruppak, with Umma and Lagash to the east; the southern cities 

              were Eridu, Ur, Larsa, and Uruk.  Asshur's position over 200 km to the north

              of Babylonian cities on the Tigris could have been because it was a sacred 

              location.

                     Cultural contact took place primarily through the Zagros Mountain 

              in the east, and along the accesses to the Mediterranean in upper Syria to 

              the west.  Through the mountain passes came metals and precious stones; 

              the early settlers along the rivers became increasingly aware that they nee-

              ded these materials. However, the settlers and the mountainfolk rarely lived 

              in peace.  The mountain men entered the valleys variously as workmen, sol-

              diers, bandits, and kings.  Only Assyria attempted to colonize and pacify 

              these tribes, which resulted in a series of hybrid civilizations in the moun-

              tains and adjacent valleys. Coming in from the south, out of the Arabian de-

              serts, the Semitic nomads contributed their language to the Mesopotamian

              culture. 

                                                 A-86

      

                         The inhabitants of Mesopotamia proper are referred to successively 

              as:  Sumerians; Babylonians; Hurrians; Assyrians; and Chaldeans.  Inva-

              ders of these lands included the Guti, the Amorites, and the Kassites; Rai-

              ders included the Hittites and the Elamites.   Most important among the 

              foreign ethnic groups that passed through or penetrated Mesopotamia 

              were the Hurrians or Horites around 2000 B.C.  

                         Hurrians rose to primary importance in the West even before the 

              Dark Age.   How they influenced Assyrian civilization is still difficult to eva-

              luate, because it isn't yet possible to gauge how much Assyria owes to 

              other contacts with the mountain peoples.   Once the Medes conquered 

              Nineveh (612 B.C.), and the Persians conquered Babylon (538 B. C.), the 

              political independence of Mesopotamia came to an end.  When Alexander 

              conquered Babylonia, it was a satrapy, a province in the Persian Empire. 

                        Sumerians were the first to create a civilization in the region.  In an 

              very short time, they created a civilization that was to leave its imprint on 

              succeeding civilizations which rose in and around Mesopotamia.  The city 

              of Uruk in the south seems to have been the place where Sumerian civili-

              zation reached its peak.  The role of the Semites throughout the region's 

              history, and especially at this time was very important.  The Semite immi-

              grants who chose to move into cities brought their Akkadian language with 

              them.  They also sought political power; the first to do so was King Sargon

              of Agade (around 2350 B.C.).  By the time the Sumerian rulers created an 

              empire from Ur, the Sumerian and Akkadian languages seemed to have 

              fused, judging from the number of Akkadian words in Sumerian at that time.

                         12. The Languages—Akkadian is the earliest recorded Semitic lan-

              guage and is commonly assigned to the eastern branch of this family of 

              languages.  Its development shares certain things in common with the old 

              South Arabic dialects, but its vocabulary shows important links with the 

              West.   Akkadian developed mainly into the Babylonian and Assyrian dia-

              lects.  Each of these dialects had their Old-,  their Middle-, and their Neo-

              periods.  The best-known work in Old Babylonian is the Code of Hammu-

              rabi.  The Babylonian language increasingly influenced the development 

              of the Assyrian language at various stages to the extent that Babylonian

              language was used for the writing of royal inscriptions, royal letters and 

              other official documents.

                         Akkadian first began to take over as the language of the region out-

              side the official literary forms. The rise of the dynasties of Isin, Larsa, and 

              Babylon (1894-1592 B.C.) saw the spoken Sumerian language clearly on 

              the decline.  Other aspects of Akkadian and Sumerian culture had already 

              blended, so that the changeover to the Akkadian language was only one in 

              political outlook and aspiration.  The Sumerian scribes succeeded in kee-

              ping Sumerian alive as a scholarly and sacred language, and in keeping it 

              from oblivion until the Mesopotamian civilization's disappearance.

                         The history of the Akkadian language doesn't parallel the ups and 

              downs of Mesopotamian political power.   Before the Dark Age (around 

              1600-1350 B.C.), Akkadian and the cuneiform system of writing spread into 

              Anatolia, where it was adapted to write the Hittite Empire's Indo-European 

              language.   After the Dark Age, Akkadian achieved its maximum extension, 

              reaching Cyprus and Egypt to the west and south, and Asia Minor to the 

              north.   Palestine and Syria used it as the diplomatic language in the west, 

              as did Hurrians and Hittites to the north.  Later, other nations used the Ak-

              kadian alphabet to write their own language.  One set of Semitic migrants 

              moved into the cities and spoke Akkadian. 

                         Another set of Semitic migrants preferred to drift between the exis-

              ting cities or to settle in small villages, and were reluctant to pay with taxes, 

              military service, and labor.  They first spoke Eastern Canaanite or Amorite

              up to the Dark Age; after that they spoke various kinds of Aramaic.   They 

              succeeded in conquering a few cities.   While the Arameans failed to have

              any political influence upon Assyria and Babylonia in the 1000 years before 

              Christ, the Akkadian tradition gave way to the efficient alphabetic system of

              writing in Aramaic.  

                         Akkadian's eclipse by Aramaic toward the 500 years before Christ, 

              progressed naturally from the fields marginal to literary and scholarly pro-

              duction such as the language of everyday life, to letters, and later to ad-

              ministrative and commercial, and finally legal documents.  Along with this, 

              and in contrast to the sedentary and absolute rule of the city-state, the no-

              madic background and outlook of all these non-Akkadians were favorable 

              to the growth of intercity and international political and commercial relations.

                          13. Writing System and Materials:  Scribes and Cuneiform—

              While Sumerians extolled the scribal craft, there is no Akkadian reference 

              to this topic.  In Middle and Neo-Assyrian texts, the city scribe appears 

              among the highest officials.  The craft was handed down in families, as 

              shown by the names appearing at the end of legal texts.   The teaching me-

              thod consisted in the teacher's writing a sign or word or short sentence on 

              one side of the tablet while the pupil copied it as best he could on the other.

                                                    A-87

   

                         Motivated by personal scholarly interest, individual scribes could ac-

              cumulate a large number of literary texts to build up a personal collection 

              of tablets.   It should be stressed that a library in the strictest sense of this 

              term existed only in Nineveh, instituted and supervised by King Ashubani-

              pal.   A large segment of the tablets, numbering more than 1,000, come 

              from this king's conquering Babylon and bringing Babylonian originals back 

              to Nineveh.   

                         In order to teach cuneiform writing, the scribes needed a staggering 

              number of texts usually called syllabaries or vocabularies, which were a list

              of signs, as well as lists of objects, and names of gods, stars, canals, rivers, 

              personal names, etc.  More complicated is the development of the sign lists.  

              One had the syllables following each other according to the vowel se-

              quence u-a-i, one which arranged the signs according to their form, and 

              one which is termed Ea by Assyriologists, and contained all Sumerian signs 

              and the many sounds each one represented.  Once the list had become ac-

              cepted as a form of scholarly presentation, a number of works for the trai-

              ning of the scribe were cast in this mold.   These were grammatical texts, 

              used to teach Sumerian grammar to Akkadian scribes.

                         14. Writing System and Materials:  Bilingualism, Word Signs, 

              and Clay—There can be no doubt that the traditionally enforced bilingua-

              lism of the scribal tradition kept interest in grammar and lexicography alive 

              in Mesopotamia.   Sumerian religious texts were provided with Akkadian 

              translations somewhere on the same tablet.  These translations are not 

              always reliable, but they do shed light on both the Sumerian and the  Akka-

              dian.  In early times, the kings of the Akkad Dynasty had both Akkadian 

              and Sumerian versions of the inscriptions made.  Hammurabi had them 

              written side by side in one inscription.   In Persian times, trilingual inscrip-

              tions appeared in Old Persian, Late Babylonian, and Elamite.  

                         The written documents in cuneiform yield an unparalleled insight 

              into nearly all aspects of the complex Mesopotamian civilization.  The varie-

              ty, time span, and volume of the contents create a body of evidence which 

              no other dead civilization can rival.  We can see in the Sumerian a change 

              from using symbols to represent words, to using symbols to represent 

              sounds.  Use of word symbols was essential for accounting and recording 

              in a bureaucratic setup.  When using these symbols for proper names, the 

              Sumerians use the word signs stripped of their original meaning to write 

              syllables of the names.  This system's complications caused it to disappear 

              when it had to compete with a far more efficient and easy alphabetic 

              system.

                        The principal of using word signs seems to have been invented by 

              non-Sumerians.  Sumerians developed the practice of using signs to ex-

              press single syllables rather than entire words.  When the Akkadians took 

              over the Sumerian system of writing, the Akkadian scribes used a large 

              number of Sumerian word signs to render corresponding Akkadian words.  

              The use of word signs was later reduced to certain frequently used nouns,

              like "god," "king," "city," etc.   However, the sounds of quite a number of 

              signs remained uncertain, and certain signs had more than one use and 

              meaning; this made for a complicated system.  Still, the system was elastic 

              enough to be used for foreign languages such as Hittite, Elamite, Hurrian, 

              and Urartean. 

                          Clay can be called the best writing material ever used because of 

               how permanent the record is.  It was extremely cheap and could be found 

               everywhere.   Clay was used in Mesopotamia in 3 main forms: tags safe-

               guarding the contents of bags; tablets of many sizes and shapes; and lar-

               ger prismatic and rarely barrel-shaped forms which held more and were

               less fragile than tablets.   The wedge-shaped cuneiform letters were im-

               pressed with a stylus, usually of reed, but sometimes of wood or bone.  In

               the earliest period words were written, always from left to right, in boxes 

               arranged in vertical columns.   Later they were arranged across the tablet.  

               If a composition is too long to be contained in one tablet, the first line of the 

               next tablet is indicated.  

                          Official clay tablets used by palaces and temples, and for legal 

               transactions have very characteristic shapes, from postage-stamp size, to 

               the size and shape of small cushions.  Each period or region is characte-

               rized by its preference for a specific shape.  The form and content of a tab-

               let often went hand in hand. Tablets were often imitated in stone or metal, 

               especially when used for foundation deposits.   In spite of the obvious ad-

               vantages of clay, the Mesopotamian scribes sometimes wrote on wooden 

               tablets with a thin layer of wax. 

                                                  A-88

                          15. Nonliterary Texts:  Bureaucracy and Diplomacy—When offi-

               cials with limited tenure run a complex bureaucracy, written records are 

               essential.  Sumerian bureaucracy left an immense number of texts which 

               are records covering the movement of goods and animals into or out of the 

               custody of an official.  Their bureaucratic techniques followed cuneiform 

               writing outside of Mesopotamia to places like Elam, Mari, Chagar-Bazar, 

               Nuzi, and Alalakh.

                          Sumerian letter formula, which was used primarily for administra-

               tive purposes, represents an order given to the messenger to recite the 

               message to the addressee.  Another place letters were used was in in-

               ternational relations. There were letters exchanged between Ibbi-Sin, Ur

               III dynasty's last king, and Ishbi-Irra, the first king of the Isin Dynasty.  

               There are also letters from Hammurabi to the kings of Mari.

                          These diplomatic letters are far overshadowed by the Amarna 

               Letters, found in the Egyptian ruins  of Akh-en-Aton's new capital. They

               contained letters to and from Babylonian, Assyrian, Hittite, Mitanni, and 

               Cypriot kings.  It sheds light on a period of Near Eastern history which 

               otherwise would have remained completely dark.   Similar texts were 

               found in Palestine—in Sichem, Lachish, and Ugarit.   Another archive 

               was found at Quyunjiq, consisting of more than 1200 letters; 200 of 

               them are from Sargon II to Ashurbanipal.

                          16. Nonliterary Texts:  Royal Letters; Law Codes— Assyrian 

               kings began their letters with “order of the king” (abat sharri).   When 

               the king would ask for an interpretation of an omen, the scholar would 

               begin his letter by quoting a passage from an omen text which fit the     

               circumstances that had prompted the king to ask the scholar for infor-

               mation; at the end he gives his name.  Kings also had a literary use for 

               these letters; they would address letters to various gods, to Asshur, to 

               other gods of the capital, and to its citizens to report victories.  Private 

               citizens also wrote letters to the gods as an act of piety.  Letter writing 

               is an art greatly appreciated in the Sumerian scribal schools. 

                          A number of law codes have survived in tablet form: 2 Sumerian 

               codes; 2 Old Babylonian codes; and a Middle Assyrian from the 1000s 

               B.C., of which we have only fragments.  2 Sumerian codes are those of 

               Ur-Nammu, king of Ur, and Lipit-Ishtar, king of Isin.  The code of Lipit-

               Ishtar may have contained around 1200 lines, including an introduction 

               and a lengthy epilogue, and was found among the tables at Nippur.  The 

               first of 2 Old Babylonian codes is from Eshnunna, beyond the Tigris and 

               also has an introduction. 

                          The tall stone tablet containing the Code of Hammurabi is the 

               best known and largest of the surviving codes.   It has an introduction 

               and a lengthy epilogue, but in spite of its size fails to cover essential 

               fields of the law, such as murder and sales.  What is interesting and im-

               portant are the facts that, 1st, there are few allusions in other legal texts

               or letters or even royal inscriptions to these collections of laws; and 2nd, 

               those legal texts dealing with topics regulated by these laws don't show 

               that they were ever actually in force.  They do give us insights into the  

               Babylonian kings' social concerns and interests. 

                          17. Nonliterary Texts:  Treaties; Royal Land Grants; and Legal

               Documents—Contractual arrangements between kings or cities to ter-

               minate a state of war are known from the Sumerian period but are quite 

               rare in Babylonia.   Allusions to international treaties occur at times in the 

               diplomatic correspondence from Mari.  Most treaties we now have were 

               found in the Hittite capital, and were written in Akkadian or Hittite.  There

               was an international treaty between the Hittite king Hattushili III and Pha-

               roah Ramses II, and there are treaties between a number of Hittite kings 

               and their vassals, which spell out the duties of the vassal and what he 

               could expect for protection from the king.  They end with an invocation to

               the gods of both parties to serve as witnesses.

                          The Neo-Assyrian treaties of Ashurniarari VI and Esarhaddon are

               very primitive in their appeals to the gods.   They describe symbo-

               lic acts which illustrate in a very crude manner the fate of the offender.   

               Since the treaties were with Western Semites, their customs of sacrifi-

               cing animals, etc. had to be respected in sanctifying treaties. The Charter

               of Asshur is a treaty-like arrangement between Sargon and the inhabi-

               tants of Asshur, which grants them tax exemptions that his predecessor 

               had abolished.  We also have an loyalty oath that Assyrian high officials 

               had to take, requiring them to report everything to the king.  There are 

               also official instructions by the king to high officials, which the Assyrians 

               had in common with the Hittites.    

                                             A-89

      

                         Royal land grants used boundary markers called kudurru stones to 

               make the grants official.  They were oval or longish cylindrical stones or 

               stone tablets.   The kudurru stones were set up on fields, while tablets 

               were deposited in temples, and include or consist of divine symbols of all 

               kinds.   We also find reliefs carved on them representing kings, either 

               alone or with the grantee. There is a curse placed on any who would re-

               move the stone.  These stones give us unique information about lan-

               guage, legal practices, and history.

                          All private legal documents, be they Sumerian or Akkadian, show 

               the same pattern.  They first mention and identify the object of the trans-

               action; then they give the names of the persons who are concluding the 

               transaction.  To these minimal requirements may be added a number of 

               clauses dealing with details of payments and secondary points.  They all 

               list the present witnesses' names at the transaction and nearly always, 

               the name of the scribe who wrote the tablet, although he never served as 

               notary.

                           In the earlier periods, in both Assyria and Babylonia, the tablet was 

               placed in a clay envelope on which the entire text was repeated to pro-

               tect the original against fraudulent alterations.  The kinds of legal transac-

               tions include: sale of slaves; sale of houses and fields; sales on credit; 

               obligations regarding delivery dates; rent of all kinds of things; hiring; di-

               vorce settlements; wills; obligations regarding the raising of children; ap-

               prenticeship contracts; court settlements and warranties.   Criminal pro- 

               ceedings were apparently not recorded on tablets. 

                          18. Religious Texts—Paramount among religious cultic texts in the 

               strictest sense of the term is the Enūma Elišh (Creation Epic), some 7 tab-

               lets with 115 to 170 lines a piece, that was recited in the Marduk temple in 

               Babylon on the 4th day of the New Year Festival.  The 1st tablet tells of 

               the sequence of the generations of the primeval deities up to Ea, the first-

               born of Anu.  In the 2nd tablet, they chose the young god Marduk to save 

               the elder gods from an emergency that even the eldest Ea could not han-

               dle.   Marduk exacts a promise that he would enjoy full superiority over all 

               as the fruits of his victory.  

                          It is obvious from the writing in the 3rd-5th tablets, that the priestly 

               poet could muster little enthusiasm for Marduk's battle.  He showed much 

               more interest in the organization of the cosmos by its new ruler.   The 6th 

               tablet ends with the assembled gods in their newly built heaven solemnly 

               recognizing the superiority of Marduk.   The 7th contains the 50 honorific 

               names given by them to Marduk.

                          There are also ritual texts, which prescribe in detail the activities 

               priests in certain ceremonies.  One from Babylon, written on at least 23 

               tablets, describes in elaborate detail the rituals for the 2nd to the 5th day 

               of the New Year's festival. It gives the time and place for every act of the 

               priest, and often quotes verbatim the prayers and benedictions to be said, 

               instead of giving them by title only.

                          The main body of religious texts are prayers, most of which were 

               recited with lifted-up hands.  Each prayer begins with an invocation and 

               the praise of the deity addressed, followed by the worshiper’s complaint 

               and ending with thanks and blessings.  In Akkadian terms it is viewed as

               a “conjuration.” Certain prayers serve expressed religious feelings, or im-

               parted magical effectiveness to the objects used in those conjurations.

                          2 important series, called Surpu and Maqlu were designed for the

               incantation priest and for the patient who doesn't know either what evil in-

               fluence on somebody else's part, or what mistake of his own caused his 

               suffering. Surpu first identifies the cause, then magically transfers the 

               cause to a carrier, and finally burns the carrier. There are also conjura-

               tions that address the torch, the fire, and the sulphur to ensure their effect

               in annihilating the sin.

                          In the Maqlu, the suffering caused by evil magic is dealt with; the 

               sorcerer or sorceress is burnt in effigy along with the conjurations that are 

               used.   The conjurations vary greatly in style and literary value, from the 

               “Prayer to the Gods of the Night,” to hackneyed repetitions of the custo-

               mary phrases.  In the case of mortal danger to the king, a substitute king 

               might have been installed under appropriate ceremonies to carry the 

               brunt of the attack and to be put to death in order to spare the real king.

                          For theology, early Sumerian and Old Babylonian have their god 

               lists.   The largest was found in Ashurbanipal's library.   In 12 columns of 

               minute writing, it lists 1500 deities in elaborate groups according to rank 

               and their relationship with each other.  Cuneiform religious literature rarely 

               allows the subjective lyricism which Western tradition expects as part of 

               an expression of personal piety.  2 of the rare exceptions are the “Prayer 

               to the Gods of the Night,” and “Let Me Praise the Lord of Wisdom,” which

               has a suffering prince that is reminiscent of Job. 

                                              A-90

       

                         19. Omen Literature—The belief that whatever unusual things 

               happen within human perception occur for the benefit of those who know 

               what to look for as messages from a supernatural agent is shared by many 

               civilizations.   We have collections of omen texts that record such ominous 

               events from the Old Babylonian period all the way up to the Seleucid.  

               They all first state the “case” or event and then foretell the future based on

               it.  Only in exceptional cases is there any logical relation between portent 

               and prediction, and the prediction contained in the apodosis (the "then 

               clause of an "If... then" sentence) is considered only as a warning, regard-

               less of how specific and detailed it is worded. 

                          Dream omens are not often represented.  Faced with the difficult 

               task of writing a dream book, the scribes resorted to organizing tablets on

               the basis of certain definite activities of the person in the dream (e.g. ea-

               ting, drinking, traveling, etc.).  The divination technique that made  Meso-

               potamia famous is astrology.   Some astrological omen tablets come from 

               Asshur and Calah; the majority of them come from the Nineveh library.  

               The series first treats the moon, then the sun, then meteorological events, 

               and eventually the planets.

                             Even the physician had a omen texts collection made up for his 

               use.   The omens were based on the appearance of parts of the patient's 

               body, beginning with the skull and ending with the ankles and toes.  The 

               diagnostic omens do not refer to specific diseases in our sense but rather 

               give the name of the god or demon who inflicted the symptoms upon the 

               patient.  The prognostic omens bluntly predict survival or death, length of 

               illness or length of time left.  Only in a few instances is even a magical 

               treatment prescribed.  

                          The largest omen series known is called summa alu in mele sakin 

               (“If a city is situated on a hill”) and was made up of at least 107 tablets. 

               Only a quarter of the 107 are preserved at all, and many of those poorly.  

               This series seems to have been compiled as a collection to incorporate 

               all the numerous large and small groups of omen texts which existed by 

               themselves in the Old Babylonian period.

                          Once a connection between an ominous event or feature and a sub-

               sequent happening is discerned and expected, one wants to change this 

               1-way communication between god and self to a 2-way system and to elicit 

               divine responses to situations created for this very purpose.  From acciden-

               tal omens one progresses to provoked omens.  There are indications that 

               birds were released for the purpose of observing their behavior and that 

               dreams were expected and movements of animals were induced and 

               omens derived from them.   Both practices fell into disuse after the Old Ba-

               bylonian period. 

                         One practice that continued was the reading of omens in the organs

               of sacrificed animals.  There is evidence that it was used in all periods in 

               Mesopotamia and exclusively for the king and the army.  The body of texts

               on this subject surpasses in size all other omen texts.  There existed a very 

               complicated  and elaborate technical terminology which referred to specific 

               features of the individual parts.  The positive and negative features were  

               added up and a good or bad omen was pronounced depending on whether 

               there were more positive or negative features.  If the answer was not posi- 

               tive, the examination could be repeated.  

                         20. Secular Literature: Epic of Gilgamesh—There are 4 other 

               kinds of texts that had nothing to do with cult or personal piety: epics; royal 

               inscriptions; wisdom texts; and miscellaneous texts.  Foremost among the 

               epics—and not only in size—is the Epic of Gilgamesh.  Its 12 tablets and 

               3,000 lines were found in the library of Ashurbanipal.  Tablets 1-11 tell the 

               story; tablet 12 gives, as a kind of appendix, a description of the nether 

               world.

                          First, the Akkadian poet expresses the intention and scope of his 

               opus, then the listener is invited to admire the walls of Uruk, built by Gilga-

               mesh; the story ends with Gilgamesh showing these same walls, using 

               identical words to refer to them.  The story proceeds with stately grace, 

               elaborate descriptions, and lively dialogues alternated with episodes that 

               are well told and integrated into the flow of happenings.

                          The basic topic is the all-powerful king who is descended from the 

               gods but is mortal, and who rebels against the idea that he must die like 

               everyone else.  In the Sumerian version, his expedition to Cedar Moun-

               tain represented his first attempt to obtain immortality.  The Akkadian poet 

               changed it into one of several famous deeds, such as the rejection of Ish-

               tar's love, the oppression of Uruk, and the fight against the Bull of Heaven.

                          The character of Enkidu is instrumental to the story; he is the friend

               of Gilgamesh in the Akkadian version, while in the Sumerian version, he is 

               Gilgamesh's servant.  Enkidu may have been instrumental in bringing about 

               the triumph of Gilgamesh over Huwawa, the guardian of the cedar, because 

               here he commits an act for which he has to pay with his life later on.  It is 

               precisely his death that starts Gilgamesh on his quest. 

                                                             A-91

     

                          In the “Fortunate Isle,” he finds Utnapishtim, the only man who had 

               succeeded in becoming immortal.  In his quest for immortality, Gilgamesh 

               is 3 times given the opportunity to realize his goal, but every time he fails 

               or is cheated of it.  He fails to stay awake for six days; he washes himself 

               and his clothes in the “Fountain of Youth” and fails to drink of it; he loses 

               the Plant of Life to a snake.  Defeated, he returns to Uruk; it was his desti-

               ny to become judge of the underworld.

                          Yet, for all its sweep, from heaven to the nether world, and all its in-

               tense human appeal in the themes of friendship and the horror of death, 

               the Epic of Gilgamesh apparently failed to appeal to the Akkadians.  No 

               copies survived from the scribal schools of Nippur, Uruk, or elsewhere; 

               none was found in the large collections of Asshur.  Not only that, but it is 

               not even referred to any of the other cuneiform texts that we have. 

                            21. Secular Literature: Other Epics—The Epic of Zu deals with

               the heroic exploits of a junior god, Ninurta, who succeeded where all other 

               gods failed.   He recaptures from the mythical Zu-bird, the all-powerful 

               charm of Enlil, which ensures the universe's correct functioning.  There is 

               also the famous short text called Ishtar's Descent to the Nether World.   It 

               describes the entrance and the exit of the goddess through the 7 gates 

               of the nether world, as well as the god Ea's ruse to save her from imprison-

               ment there. 

                          There are many fragments surviving from the Etana story.  Etana is 

               the king of Kish but without offspring.  He is sent by Shamash in search of 

               “the plant of birth.”  The conflict of an eagle and a snake are also part of 

               the story.  The snake imprisons the eagle; Etana frees the eagle and rides 

               upon his back to the heaven of Anu.   We don't have the story's end, but 

               one can safely assume that Etana obtained the plant of birth.  In another 

               story Adapa is a hero in the Greek sense of the word.  He shares with Gil-

               gamesh divine ancestors, a mortal body, and a failure to obtain immortality.  

               Adapa breaks the wings of the South wind, and is called before Anu to an-

               swer for his deed.

                          There is a lot of evidence of the practice of writing epics to be used 

               as charms.   The Epic of Era was found written on amulet-shaped tablets 

               that were hung up to protect a house from Era's rage.  The god himself be-

               stows blessings on those who praise it, from king to scribe, and assures 

               the house where the text is kept freedom from pestilence.  The content of

               the epic is still rather obscure.  It seems to be about how the god Marduk 

               left the city of Babylon in the care of Era and Ishum and of the subsequent 

               destruction of Babylon by the Elamite Shutruk-Nahunte.  We have bits and 

               pieces of many stories that survived, but in most cases too little has sur-

               vived to be able to say very much about them.

                          22. Secular Literature: Royal Inscriptions— The inscriptions of 

               the Assyrian and Babylonian kings are primarily considered source mate-

               rial for the historian, and their literary merits have hardly been investigated.

               In Assyria, Arik-den-li (1319-1308 B.C.) and Shalmaneser I (1272-1242 

               B.C.) are the first kings to arrange records in the form of annals.  Charac-

               teristic of royal inscriptions of the Babylonian kings are highly descriptive  

               titles they give themselves, titles which describe their piety and achieve-

               ments.   The kings of the Hammurabi Dynasty started the Akkadian prac-

               tice of listing the blessing they expected in return for their pious deeds.  

               The kings of the First Babylonian Dynasty of Babylon like to name their 

               adversaries and refer in some detail to their victories.

                          The Sargonide branch of the Assyrian kings produced by far the 

               most royal inscriptions that still survive.  Tiglath-pileser produced reports 

               on hunting expeditions and reports on the care given to botanical gardens 

               and to rare and foreign animals.  Some kings were poetic (Sargon) and 

               some kings were very technical (Sennacherib).  Interest in royal inscrip-

               tions is further shown by the numerous copies of old inscriptions on sta-

               tues, bricks, etc., made by later scribes.   Included in these are legends 

               that attached themselves to famous rulers, to Sargon the founder of a dy-

               nasty, and to Ibbi-Sin, whose empire was crushed by invasions.  Sargon's 

               legend includes his birth, floating down a river in a basket, and his rescue 

               and rise to power. 

                          Others of these copied inscriptions refer to historical events and 

               kings of the present or the more recent past.  In one, the scribes and poets 

               take great pains to explain why Marduk abandoned his city to the Hittites.  

               In another, a poem directs a vigorous criticism of Nabonidus, one of the 

               last kings during Babylon's political independence.  It criticizes his building 

               of new temples and creating new images of old gods.  The priestly author 

               takes pains to point out that Nabonidus was not at all the scholar and in-

               spired diviner of the truth he is purported to be but, in fact, an ignoramus 

               and a blasphemer.  The Persian King Cyrus, on the other hand is de-

               scribed in glowing terms, partly because he restored the clergy to power.

                                                     A-92

    

                          23. Secular Literature:  Wisdom Texts; Humor—Wisdom texts 

               are an important source for the study of the moral and social attitudes of 

               Mesopotamians.  There is a large quantity containing Sumerian proverbs 

               and a smaller collection of Akkadian proverbs, which are related to the Su-

               merian.  By their very nature, they represent one of the most difficult text 

               categories to be investigated.  Quite a few proverbial sayings and color-   

               ful phrases can be found in letters.  

                          The imagery of these proverbs is mainly rooted in the context of the 

               daily life and worries of the Mesopotamian people, and represents a very 

               practical wisdom.  Like the proverbs, the Akkadian fables have to be rela-

               ted to the Sumerian texts, with their disputes between plants, animal, and 

               even materials.  In Sumerian we have dialogues between Winter and Sum-

               mer, Silver and Bronze, the Pickax and the Plow and others. From Akka-

               dian, we get dialogues between the Date Palm and Tamarisk, the Bull and  

               the Horse, etc.

                             4 texts deserve special mention.  1st, the Theodicy consists of a 

               dialogue written as an acrostic poem.   The skeptic elaborates on the eter-

               nal topic of his misfortunes, which contrasts with the success of the ungod-

               ly.  He writes on the worthlessness of all human endeavors, on a lack of 

               social justice, etc.  His pious adversary extols the virtues of devotion to the 

               gods, whose wisdom in distributing success and failure remains beyond 

               human understanding, and suggests that the skeptic resign himself to ac-  

               cepting good and evil as the gods have allotted them.   2nd, we have part 

               of the Speculum Principis, only one short, 60-line tablet.  It contains very 

               brief political precepts meant as a guide to the king in preserving lights  

               and dispensing justice to the “free” cities and people under his rule.

                          3rd, on a Seleucid tablet and an Assyrian one, we have a comical 

               dialogue between a Master and a servant, where the master gives an 

               order, and the servant dissuades him by quoting proverbs.  When the mas-

               ter revokes the order, the servant makes exactly the opposite case by quo-

               ting from the same source of proverbs.  Everywhere, the servant is shown 

               to be much brighter than his master.  4th, there is the folk tale of the Poor    

               Man of Nippur about a poor man who takes his revenge on an unjust offi-

               cial by a series of roguish pranks.  It sheds light on everyday speech, 

               mores, and workaday life of the lower classes. 

                          24. Institutions—In order to understand the Assyrio-Babylonian 

               civilization, we need to look at the social structure and at the 3 most impor-

               tant institutions that coordinated that society.  In Assyria, there was little, if     

               any, genuine urbanization; and agriculture, dependent here on rainfall, 

               was primarily a village affair.  The population consisted basically of poor      

               farmers living in village communities, and of a thin layer of a ruling class 

               of feudal lords or foreign conquerors.   The village units showed a definite     

               and tenacious resistance to urbanization but adapted themselves easily to 

               a feudal organization.  They were willing to pay with products and work for  

               the support of a feudal lord, who might be replaced overnight or be perma-

               nently absent from court.

                          These feudal lords demanded a kingship quite different in concept 

               from that of Babylonia.   With their king they went to war annually and 

               made raids upon the enemy after the harvest.  The king obtained wealth 

               and power by conquest; internal colonization centered in newly built royal 

               cities populated with displaced conquered peoples, prisoners of war, and 

               natives forced to settle there.   All this was kept together and functioning 

               by sheer force; any political change caused immediate disintegration and 

               collapse. 

                          Villages were quite rare in Babylonia, because the irrigation re-

               quired by their climate and their production of cereal grains can only ope-

               rate on a large scale with an overall authority in place.  The annual floo-

               ding's timing was not advantageous; much protective work was required, 

               and the increase of salt content in the soil had to be counteracted by dig-

               ging new canals that dislocated the arable territory's boundaries.  The 

               consequences for Babylonia were far-reaching, for they materialized in a 

               movement away from a central location, which could break the economic 

               prosperity of a city, and move political power to marginal regions.  Only 

               when a city had become the seat of a dynasty and could live off the spoils 

               of war or on tribute could it survive such changes.

                          On the matter of trade, the Assyrian traders were active up to the 

               time of Shamshi-Adad I (1812-1780 B.C.) in Asia Minor.  The Babylonian 

               export of textiles produced by slaves created the means of importing me-

               tals for essential and prestige purposes and stone for decoration before

               the Dark Age.   After the Dark Age we find a different situation.  The tra-

               ders who once traveled along the Euphrates, through Syria, and to the 

               Hittite capital were now royal emissaries, enjoying royal protection.  Not 

               much is said about trade after that.

                                                              A-93

                          It may have been that Mesopotamian trade had changed from ex

               port-import activity to the more profitable carrying trade linking the East     

               with the Mediterranean countries.   It is clear that the trader profited and 

               may have grown rich, but the trader's part was only participation in profits,  

               pooling of funds, and sharing of responsibility.  Apparently the trader never     

               held sole financial responsibility or enjoyed freedom of action.  

                          25. King and Palace—From the Mesopotamian point of view, there 

               existed only one institution in our sense, and that was kingship.  It was of 

               divine origin and therefore sacred in nature.   Grammatically the name of 

               the king was in the same class, and was indicated by the same sign that 

               was used to indicate gods and objects of worship.  

                          But to speak of “deification” is a gross rationalization.  In Assyria, 

               the royal person's sanctity was expressed by its supernatural and awein-

               spiring radiance, which was also a characteristic of deities and all things 

               divine.   This sheen or halo terrified his foes but was taken away from the 

               king when he lost divine support.  The special relationship existing be-

               tween king and god, which materialized in the successes of the ruler in war 

               and the prosperity of his country in peace was often expressed in terms of 

               family relations.

                          There are deep-seated differences between Babylonian and Assyri-

               an concepts of kingship.  The Assyrian king was the god Asshur's high 

               priest, while the Babylonian king was admitted into Marduk's room only 

               once a year, and then without royal insignia.  The Assyrian king had to be 

               crowned anew every year, whereas this wasn't necessary in Babylonia. 

               The annual crowning in Assyria and the custom of having the king repre-

               senting all the people before the gods suggests that he was originally 1st

               among equals in a loose tribal union of sheiks.

                          The king’s person had to be carefully protected from disease and evil 

               magic influences.  So, adjoining the throne room of each Assyrian palace 

               there is a room for ritual ablutions.  And the personnel of the Assyrian and 

               Babylonian courts differed widely.  The Assyrian king was surrounded by of-

               ficials whose task it was to execute his orders; the Babylonian king was sur-

              rounded by the administrators of his palace.  

                         The Babylonian king had a vizier, and service to the king was put on 

               the same level as service to the gods.   The Assyrian kings were always 

               careful not to offend their high officials, whose loyalty to the dynasty they 

               had to secure by oaths and agreements to ensure the crown prince's suc-    

               cession.  The palace redistributed the wealth coming into the country and 

               came into stiff competition and conflict with the similar system used by the 

               temple.    

                          26. City and Temple—While the economic importance of the temple 

               in Mesopotamia constantly declined, the conflict between the palace and the 

               free city gained in importance. There were royal attempts to restrict the free-

               doms of the old cities and the creation of new cities under the king's control. 

               They developed early in southern Mesopotamia, with suburbs, and a harbor 

               that had a specific political status connected with trade. 

                          Each city contained a palace and at least one temple.  The city was a 

               legal person and a political body in our sense.   The growth or decay of the

               city depended on the importance of the 2 institutions it harbored:  temple and

               palace.   Each city had a definite individuality which often reflected in its his- 

               tory.   Nippur was a sacred town.   Sippar occupied a unique position in the

               Old Babylonian period commercially, and as a link with semi-nomadic tribes 

               of the Upper Euphrates.   Archaeologists did not excavate Borsippa until 

               1980-2003. 

                          From the point of view of urbanism, the Babylonian cities built on the

               plains formed by soil deposits from the annual floods show significant separa-

               tion between the temple and the palace.   Each was situated in a separate     

               walled enclosure within the entrenched city; the city government was in the  

               city gates, where the inhabitants of the city quarters met in assembly.

                          The pattern was different in Assyria.  There temple and palace 

               moved together; one wall enclosed them, the treasury and the barracks of 

               the royal guard; this formed a city within a city.  The compound could be

               situated in the center of the city or on a high artificial terrace straddling the 

               city wall.   The peripheral emplacement of the inner city and the fact that 

               its buildings were placed on a terrace show the king as high priest separa-

               ted in a sacred city by an enclosure.   At the turn of the 2nd millennium of

               their culture, the inhabitants of the oldest cities began to acquire a special 

               status and require a special deference from the king, beyond the exemp-

               tions from taxation, work details, and military service.

                          We don't know much about the history of the Mesopotamian temple 

               as an institution.   Economically the temple would take in gifts and rents and

               dispense rations and other payments.   In the community, the temple had the 

               functions of administering oaths, establishing weights, measures and the in-

               terest rates for loans.   The building of sanctuaries and providing them funds 

               was a royal privilege at all times.

                                                             A-94

                          It is difficult to establish what the temple meant for the private citizen

               in the frame of his personal religious life.   The participation of the private 

               person was pretty much restricted to the cycle of those annual cultic events 

               when the image was moved outside the temple; the private person was far 

               removed from any intimate or personal contact with the gods cult.   

                          27. Mesopotamian Gods; God Images—The sources we have to 

               work with offer an extremely complex picture of the gods of the Mesopota-

               mian people, not only because of the length of their civilization, but be-

               cause it represents a fusion of Sumerian and Akkadian deities.  The result

               is best illustrated by a god list that contained more than 1500 names and 

               yet failed to mention names well known from other sources.  This fusion of

               the gods of different cultures led to a blurring of the individual personalities

               of all but the most outstanding and characteristic figures.

                          The gods fall into the categories of old gods and young ones.   Anu

               is the oldest god; his realm is remote heaven.   Enhil, when he developed  

               from the god of the city of Nippur to ruler of the gods, assumed much of 

               the remoteness of Anu.   Ea shared the rule of heaven and earth with Anu

               and Enhil; his realm was the waters surrounding the earth and those below

               it; he was the patron god of exorcism. Marduk was at first a young god, but 

               Babylon's political importance moved him into the rank of the rulers of the 

               cosmos.  Ninurta, Enhil's son, had no city of his own.  Nabu, Marduk's son, 

               became Borsippa's god and was the patron god of the scribes.

                          The foremost astral deities were, of course Shamash, the sun-god,

               and city god of Larsa and Sippar and Sin, the moon-god and city god of 

               Ur and Harran.   Shamash was the judge of heaven and earth and was 

               concerned with protecting the poor and the unjustly treated.   Unique 

               among the gods of Mesopotamia is Asshur god of the city of Asshur.  Ass-

               hur was provided by his theologians with all the trappings of a lord of the 

               universe, creator and organizer of the cosmos, father of the gods, when 

               Assyria became the region's dominant power.  He was connected with a 

               mountain sacred to him and had a sanctuary there.

                          The god Nerga was the city god of Cutha and along with his wife 

               Eresh-kigal, the ruler of the realm of the dead.   Ishtar stands in stark con-

               trast to the various other mother-goddesses of the region as both the bat-

               tle-loving warrior-goddess who gives victory to the king she loves, and as 

               the goddess of sexual life.   There is remarkably little foreign influence on 

               the Babylonian or Assyrian gods.

                          While gods were thought to reside in various cosmic localities, a 

               varying amount of sanctity was considered inherent in a number of locali-

               ties on earth.  The sacredness of mountains is well attested, especially in 

               Assyria.   The 2 rivers Tigris and Euphrates were likewise considered sa-

               cred, especially their sources.   While there were sacred mythical trees,

               nothing is known of the sacredness of actual trees.

                          Fundamentally, the deity was considered present in his image, li-

               ving in the temple much in the same way as the king resided in his palace. 

               Most images were made of precious wood plated with gold, with staring 

               eyes of precious stone.  Assyrian kings state repeatedly that they had ima-

               ges made of important deities according to their own ideas, while in Baby-

               lonian the conservatism there caused even the slightest change in an ima-

               ge's appearance by the king to trigger great opposition from the priest and 

               the city.

                          The images were constructed or repaired in special workshops of 

               the temple.   In the morning, the statues of the minor gods were brought 

               before the important ones.   Meals were “served,” platters were passed be-

               fore the image; sometimes the food was set on the table and curtains were 

               drawn around it and the image.   The “leftovers” were at times sent to the 

               king, to have him partake of the food blessed by the god.   The food itself 

               was to be ritually clean and prepared in prescribed ways.   The images 

               were often carried in procession through the temples' spacious yards to 

               visit other images in elaborate ceremonials.   There were the sacred cere-

               monial marriage festivals in which the god met his spouse. 

                          What ever comfort or help they could expect from charms, exorcists,

               and omens, the Mesopotamians had developed the idea that each human 

               being was endowed with a unique and personal nature.   This nature cir-    

               cumscribed one's life in terms of luck or misfortune, survival or death.   Al-    

               though they were ever ready to turn to the unseen powers with prayers to 

               change their natures, a dignified resignation characterized the outlook of 

               the Mesopotamian as an individual.

                          28. Arts and Culture—Mesopotamian art showed major achieve-

               ments and originality in only 2 mediums of artistic aspiration.   1st, there 

               was the monumental architecture of temple and palace.  The use of bricks 

               and roof beams limited the range of technical possibilities. 

                                                               A-95

    

                          Bricks were joined with mud instead of mortar and hidden behind a 

               mud facing, and the length of the beams determined the width of rooms, 

               since columns, etc., were not used.   Instead, the brick walls had rhythmi-

               cally distributed stepped recesses and buttresses in strategic locations.   

               The mud layer hiding the bricks was decorated with white and colored pla-

               ster with painted  designs, with mosaics made of colored clay cones, or by 

               cutting stone slabs in relief.

                          Temples were built with a major entrance provided with buttressed 

               towers which led into a spacious paved yard, surrounded on 3 sides by 

               rows of auxiliary rooms.  Somewhere within that space was an altar or well.

               In the 4th side was a buttressed or intricately recessed entrance that 

               opened into the small room that sheltered the god, whose image was 

               placed on a slightly elevated podium before a recessed niche. 

                            An essential feature of a Mesopotamian temple was from very 

               early the temple tower.  These garishly colored, staged and crenellated

               towers rising high above the white-faced temples made Mesopotamia fa-

               mous, as their mention in the Bible shows.  In Babylonia, the structures 

               were made of an earthen core, and placed apart from the temple.   They 

               were accessible by outside stairways.  In Assyria, temple towers were with-

               in the temple,  placed so that the image's niche penetrated into the core of

               it.  It either had no means of access or held the stairs within its confines. 

               The purpose and the function of these impressive structures are unknown.

                          Temples and palaces were similar.  The essential part of the palace

               was the throne room, where the king received ambassadors and tribute-

               bearing vassals.   The throne's placement corresponded to the image's

               preferred position in its room.  In Babylonia, one had to turn 90 degrees to 

               face the image or throne after entering the room; in Assyria, the image or

               throne faced the entrance.   

                          Assyrian palaces had a characteristic topic on their murals-repre-

               sentations of the king as a protégé of the gods and as an ever-victorious 

               warrior shown slaughtering the defeated in battle scenes.  These scenes

               were first captured on murals and later on stone panels cut in shallow re-

               lief.   They lined the courts, the throne rooms, and other important halls for 

               roughly the last third of this civilization's 1800-year existence.

                          Mesopotamia's 2nd major achievement was small-scale engravings

               on the precious stone of cylinder seals.  Here we meet a fairy-tale world of

               monsters and demons, with enthroned deities, numerous animals in pro-

               cession before a king or god, pious worshipers and battling heroes.  They 

               act as a sensitive barometer of foreign influence, and of the native artistic 

               creativity that would otherwise not have broken through the heavy crust of

               traditional or conventional thinking.   The spirit and superb technique of 

               this art managed to survive nearly 2,000 years of delicate refining and be-

               coming the conventional way of representing human beings.

                          Few of the other art objects from Mesopotamia appeal to Western 

               aesthetic conventions. There is a marble face, the bronze, elegant head of

               an Akkadian king, and a few statues.   The rest seems too mechanical and  

               stuck in the formalism of the period.   What most stelae and reliefs seem 

               to portray beyond their subjects is the artist's boredom with the extremely     

               traditional way of thinking.   The exception to this is the array of monstrous 

               beings that Mesopotamian artists knew how to endow with startling per-

               suasiveness.

                          In respect to culture, Mesopotamia exercised influence upon its 

               neighbors to the North, Northwest, and West by means of its language 

               and system of writing.   Elam to the East, Armenia to the North, the Hit-

               tites and the Hurrians to the West, and Syria and the eastern Mediterra-

               nean to the South all felt Mesopotamia's influence.   Their influence even 

               reached Egypt in the form of the cylinder seal, a desire for a system of wri-

               ting, and certain features of monumental architecture.  In the contact of the 

               Hebrews with this civilization, we have the unique instance of a deported 

               nation returning to its homeland.   And we certainly may mention the Bible 

               as a vehicle for a number of religious and literary concepts of Mesopota-

               mian origin.

                          29. Sciences—In science, Mesopotamia's achievements in mathe- 

               matics and mathematical astronomy can well stand comparison with the 

               accomplishments of other civilizations up to Newton's time.   The earliest 

               texts we have are from the Hammurabi period. 1st, we have multiplication 

               and division tables, and 2ndly mathematical problems, sometimes with a 

               detailed solution, sometimes with no solution at all.

                                                           A-96

                          The rise of Babylonian astronomy took place in the 400s B. C. Be-

               fore that we have observations of the appearance and disappearance of 

               Venus.   Then we have observations on the arrangement of the fixed stars

               in 3 ways, and on the planets, the moon and seasons around 700 B. C. 

               There are also reports to Assyrian kings on eclipses and movements of 

               planets.   

                          Then however, begins with amazing speed the development of 

               mathematical astronomy in Babylonia.   A workable fixed lunar-solar calen-

               dar was needed, so a zodiac was created for the movements of the sun 

               and the planets.   Observations were made of the varying lengths of the 

               days and nights during the year, and arithmetical progressions were used 

               to express the variations in the movements of heavenly bodies.

                          Babylonian medicine was primitive and crude compared to Egyp-

               tian medicine, relying on exorcism, rituals, and a rather confused use of 

               medicinal herbs.   There is no evidence available that their physicians 

               practiced surgery.   Mesopotamian technology is likewise unimpressive.

               They knew enough to admire the achievements of those that they con-

               quered, but nowhere can one observe any marked advance beyond the 

               level at which we meet them in the Sumerian civilization.   There are indi-

               cations of Babylonia losing various manufacturing technologies, and resis-

               ting, nearly always with success, any outside stimulus.

                          Mesopotamia, and in particular Assyria maintained contacts with     

               foreign civilizations in varying degrees of intensity over the 3 millennium of 

               its known history.   These contacts were far more effective in the earliest 

               periods than they were later on.   Mesopotamia, in respect to technology, 

               received from the East and gave to the West.   From India, Mesopotamia 

               received its feathered animals, the chicken and eventually the peacock. 

               From Central Asia it received horses, camels, etc.; both were passed on to 

               the West. 

                          30. Historical Sources—In the strictest sense, deliberate recording

               of Mesopotamia history is properly set in the period from Tiglath-pileser III 

               (745-727) and his Babylonian counterpart Nabu-nasir to Antiochus I, Soter 

               (280-261 B.C.).  Not very many years of this stretch of nearly 500 years 

               are represented in the Mesopotamian Chronicles.   Their style is factual 

               and terse, but they are of great importance not only for their own history, 

               but also for the Old Testament and even Greek history.   Some of these 

               texts record in similar style events before the Dark Age.   Their content is 

               necessarily more legendary but still an important source of information for 

               the time from Sargon of Agade to Sumuabu of Babylonia.

                          Another sign of historical awareness is the king lists, which reach 

               from the mythical moment “when kingship descended from heaven” to the 

               Diadochi.   They give the kings’ names and the lengths of their reigns, di-

               vide them into dynasties, and provided remarks which show the influence

               of various political concepts.   For the last centuries of Assyro-Babylonian 

               history, there is one list that coordinates the reigns of the kings of the 2 

               lands.   Awareness of history expresses itself in royal inscriptions and in 

               references to kings of the past.

                          Although they were not intended as such, there were Assyrian and 

               Babylonians lists that are now of historical value.   In Assyria, the years of 

               a king's reign were identified with a high official’s name; that name was 

               used in a consistent order.   In Babylonia, every year was named after an 

               event that had occurred in the year before, with name changes occurring

               in the mid-year to reflect an actual event. The deaths of foreign kings are 

               mentioned at times.

                          The main body of historical information, however, is contained in 

               the so-called royal inscriptions, beginning with Mesannepadda of Uruk, 

               and ending with Antiochus I, Soter.   They range from a few signs on vo-

               tive offerings to rock inscriptions of Gehistun, from small clay cones to 

               prisms containing many hundreds of lines.   Very few of them were writ-

               ten primarily to inform us of a king's achievements; most of them were 

               buried as foundation deposits, placed in dark corridors or on inaccessible 

               rocks.

                          As essential as these texts are to reconstructing Mesopotamian his-

              tory, it must be remembered that they are written in highly stylized, some-

              times poetic, language.   Events are sometimes arranged geographically, 

              and sometimes chronologically.   They are extended, embellished, reduced, 

              or telescoped to fit the requirements of space or of the specific purpose of 

              the inscription.   It is even possible to discover personal preferences and 

              mannerism of the kings.   Assyrian kings seem to have had a love of details 

              and exact figures, while Babylonian kings avoid a factual format, preferring 

              old-fashioned and vague terms.

                         The timing of events can't be placed with certainty any further back 

              than the 700s B.C. For anything further back than that, the historian has to 

              rely on dead reckoning and on the comparing of events that occurred at 

              that same time. The key events being used to date other events are the be-

              ginning of Hammurabi's reign and an astronomical event that happens 

              every 64 years.   3 years are suggested for his reign—1856, 1792, and 

              1728 B.C, none of which fit all the evidence we have today.   This article 

              uses the date of 1792. 

                                                              A-97

    

                          31. Archaeological Notes—The first travelers interested in ancient 

               history began to pass through this area in 1576.   Their curiosity was natu-

               rally stimulated by the Bible stories about the tower of Babel, which they 

               saw in the impressive ruins of Aqar Quf, and the destruction of Nineveh. 

               The spectacular ruins of Persepolis—outside of Mesopotamia—have to be 

               credited with attracting most of the attention through their inscriptions on 

               stone, which led to deciphering of the cuneiform script.   Diplomatic person-

               nel and interested amateurs sent their respective governments Assyrian re-

               liefs and colossi, cylinder seals, etc. 

                          In the last 25 years of the 1800s, great expeditions from France, 

               England, America, and Germany began.   The French started in 1842; their 

               excavations at Telloh (1877), the American's at Nippur (1889), and the Ger-

               man's at Asshur (1903) yielded many 10s of thousands of tablets which 

               shed light on nearly every phase and aspect of Mesopotamian civilization. 

               After World War I came the period when the deep south and the region be-

               yond the Tigris began to yield their information.

                          Once the process was begun, the deciphering took over 50 years.   

               This is because the pioneers were faced with 3 rather different systems of 

               cuneiform writing: Old Persian; Elamite; and Babylonian, with some texts in 

               2 or even all 3 languages.   Those working to decipher this writing included: 

                   G. Grotefend; Anquetil du Perron; I. R. C. Rask; E. Burnouf; 

                   H. Rawlinson; J. Oppert; N. L. Westergaard; E. Norris; 

                   F. H. Weissbach; I. Lowenstern; and E. Hincks. 

               J. Oppert gets the credit for first naming the Sumerian civilization.  

                         The Semitic character of Akkadian proved both a boon and a draw- 

               back.   While it stimulated interest in the newly discovered Semitic lan-

               guage when the cuneiform tests started to reveal historical material bea-

               ring directly on the Bible, this attitude overshadowed appreciation and in-

               vestigation of Akkadian as a language with quite unique and distinct cha-

               racteristics, and of Mesopotamian civilization as an integrated whole.

                          Besides the linguistic approach to the study of Assyria, there is the 

               field of cultural anthropology   Very little understanding has been achieved

               so far in this field.   The vast subject of social institutions has hardly been 

               touched, and the social and economic structure remains obscure.   The 

               field of religion remains largely unknown and only barely explored.   So 

               much data has been amassed on all these subjects, that a period dedica-

               ted solely to digesting and coordinating this material would be a blessing.

    

       ASTONISHMENT  (שמה; sham mah; ekotasiV, (ek o ta sis); qamboV,     

               (tham bos)) tham bos)  In the Bible, it is a reaction of humans to an act of 

               God within history.

                          Astonishment in the Old Testament combines wonder, dread, and     

               horror, brought on by an expected divine act.  It is awakened by the “other-

               worldly,” by an act of God which man cannot understand, and by a turn of 

               divine purpose seemingly dissonant with the past.  A person who has been 

                visited by Yahweh in judgment becomes an object of horror, and astonish-

               ment comes when one is confronted by a jealous God.

                          In the New Testament, it is aroused by Jesus Christ; it contains the 

               element of surprise, of being met by the unexpected, and of dread.  In the 

               New Testament, astonishment includes not only dread, but also fascination

               and attraction.  The moment of dread before God is overcome in the love 

               and submission of faith.

       ASTROLOGER  (אשף (ash shawf); הברי שמים (hoe beh ray  shaw mah 

               yeem), dividers of the heavens)  

                          The longing to ascertain what the future has in store for the indivi-

               dual or society gave rise to the pseudoscience of astrology.  The heavenly 

               bodies were minutely observed by the Babylonian and Egyptian astrolo-

               gers in the belief that conjunctions foretold future events that will take place 

               on earth.  Astrology, to judge from the evidence of the Old Testament, was 

               unknown and generally disregarded in ancient Israel. All references to it re-

               fer exclusively to the Babylonian practice.  The earliest horoscope in Meso-

               potamia dates from 410 B. C.; the earliest horoscopes in Egypt are from the 

               reign of Augustus. “Astrology” as a designation for the art based on the re- 

               lationship between the celestial bodies and earthly events was not officially

               at home in Israel.

                                                               A-98

  

       ASTRONOMY.  The sum total of elementary observations of celestial phenome-

               na found in the Bible can be summed up briefly.  The sun was fashioned 

               and placed in the firmament on the 4th day of creation, to light the earth in 

               daytime and to regulate the seasons.   The moon was also fashioned and 

               placed in the firmament on the 4th day of creation, to light the earth in the 

               nighttime and to regulate the seasons.  Its light is represented as indepen- 

               dent of the sun, and its movement as being controlled entirely by God's will.  

               The standard calendar in Israel was lunar, and the major seasonal festivals

               of spring and fall commenced at full moon.

                          Eclipses of the sun and the moon may be alluded to in the expres-

               sions “to become dark, to be darkened.”  Stars are created by God; their 

               multitude is mentioned in Genesis and their height in Job.  Star worship 

               was explicitly forbidden.   As to constellations, there is a clear reference 

               to Orion and the Pleiades.  There are several far less certain references to 

               constellations in Job, Chapters 9, 37, and 38.

                          The deficient nature of Egyptian arithmetic acted as a retarding 

               force on the development of astronomy.  The Egyptian year consisted of 

               12 months of 30 days each; to the total of 360 days, 5 were added at the 

               end of each year.   The 12 months were divided into the inundation, win-

               ter and summer seasons.   The calendar's origin seems to be from obser-

               ving the fairly close coincidence of the Nile's annual rising with the rising 

               of Sirius.   Lunar calendars were in use for liturgical purposes. 

                          25 civil years are almost equal to 309 lunar months.   Until the 

               Greek period there is no evidence of an Egyptian zodiac.  However, the 

               year is divided into 36 “decans,” which corresponds to 10 days, 10 de-

               grees of the ecliptic, and represents a star or groups of stars which rise 

               at a specific hour of the night during that particular 10 day period.   The 

               day was divided into 24 hours, 12 for the time of daylight and 12 for night.  

               The Greeks modified this by making the hours of equal, 60 minute lengths. 

                          Our knowledge of Mesopotamian astronomy comes mostly from 

               texts found in Uruk and Babylon.  The first texts based on observation 

               date from 1650 B.C.  One ancient period conceived the universe as 8 con-

               centric circles with the moon in the center.  Around 700 B. C., texts copied 

               from an older period mention fixed stars, planets, the moon, the seasons, 

               etc.   From these and other texts, it is safe to assume that Babylonian 

               astronomers used the zodiac of 12 times 30 degrees as a reference sys-

               tem for solar and planetary motion, and a fixed luni-solar calendar.  They 

               also probably used some of the basic period relations for the moon, the 

               planets, and had an empirical insight into lunar and planetary movement 

               and the varying lengths of day and night.

                         It seems that from the beginning the Mesopotamian calendar has 

               been lunar at all times.  The beginning of the month was counted from 

               the beginning of the new moon.  The length of the month varied between 

               slightly over 29 days to nearly 30 days.  Because the lunar and solar year

               had a different number of days in them, a periodic adjustment of a 13th 

               month became necessary, and was achieved by royal decree; Hammura-

               bi is known to have done this.   The Mesopotamian scribes had 2 very com-

               plex and precise tables explaining the variations of the length of the lunar 

               month.  They could accurately predict a lunar eclipse, but could only an

               swer whether a solar eclipse was possible or impossible.   The planetary 

               theory of the Mesopotamian scribes seemed to be modeled after the lunar 

               tables.

         

       ASTYAGES  (AstuagaV )  The last ruler of the Median Empire (585-550); son 

               of Cyaxares.  He helped make peace by marrying Aryenis, the daughter of 

               Alyattes king of Lydia.  His daughter Mandane married Cambyses I; Asty-    

               ages' grandson Cyrus grew up with a shepherd and his wife after being ex- 

               posed.  Cyrus turned against his grandfather, as did his general Harpa-

               gus, whose son Astyages murdered.  In the 2nd battle between the Medes 

               and the Persians, Astyages was made prisoner. 

        

       ASUPPIM (אספים)  The name is correctly rendered as the temple “store-

               house,” and not as a proper name. 

        

       ASYNCRITUS (AsugkritoV ) A Christian greeted by Paul in Romans. 

        

       ATAD  (אטד, thorn)  A place in Canaan, perhaps between Jericho and the

               Dead Sea, where Jacob's funeral cortege stopped on its way to Hebron.  

               The Egyptians observed seven-days mourning; as a result, this place 

               received the additional name Abel-mizraim. 

                                                            A-99 

      

       ATARAH (or wreath)  Jerahmeel's 2nd wife o ; mother of Onam. 

        

       ATARGATIS  (AtargatiV )  The great female deity of the Aramaeans, con-

               sort of Hadad.  Her name is a compound of Atar (i. e. Ishtar or Astarte) 

               and Attah (a male deity otherwise unknown).  In origin, she is one of the 

               mother-goddesses of Asia Minor; she had castrated priests and a throne 

               mounted on lions.   After her adoption by the Syrians, she acquired many

               of the Babylonian Ishtar's traits.   She had temples in many other Near 

               Eastern places.  Her temple at Carnaim in Gilead is mentioned in Macca- 

               bees as the scene of a slaughter by Judas Maccabeus of the inhabitants 

               who had fled to it for refuge.  In the Greek world, her cult was carried as 

               far west as Britain. 

         

       ATAROTH  (עטרות, crown, wreath)  1.  One of the towns requested by the    

               tribes of Reuben and Gad for their possession, around 13 km northwest of 

               Dibon and 16 km east of the Dead Sea.      2.  One of the boundary towns 

               of the tribe of Ephraim, located on its eastern border. 

        

       ATAROTH-ADDAR  (עטרות אדר, glorious crown)  A town on the boundary 

               between Ephraim and Benjamin.  There is confusion and disagreement as

               to the location of this town. 

        

       ATER  (אטר, crippled one, left-handed one)   The head of a family that re-

               turned to Palestine after the Exile.  Some of the family were gatekeepers, 

               and Ater alone is mentioned as one who sealed Ezra's covenant. 

       ATHACH (עתך) A city in southern Shephelah to which David sent part of the

               booty taken from the Amalekites. 

        

       ATHAIAH  (עתיה)  A man of Judah; son of Uzziah; included in the list of post-

               exilic inhabitants of Jerusalem.  

       ATHALIAH  (עתליה, Yahweh is great, exalted)    1.  Jehoram's wife, king of  

               Judah; daughter of Ahab and Jezebel; granddaughter of Omri; mother of 

               Ahaziah.  She reigned over Judah for 6 years, around 842-837 B.C.  She 

               represents a northern intrusion into the otherwise uninterrupted Davidic 

               dynasty in Judah.  She became as zealous and capable a proponent of 

               Baal-Melkart as her infamous mother.  

                          Athaliah's son was killed during a palace coup while visiting the 

               north.   She destroyed all surviving male heirs and managed to stay on the 

               throne for 6 years—a tribute to her cold-blooded competence.  She was 

               deposed and slain by Jehoiada the priest, through mercenary soldiers and 

               an infant son Joash of Ahaziah whom he and his wife had hidden and se-

               cretly reared.  The priest then presided over a covenant between Yahweh, 

               king and people.   The populace was badly split between the Baalist and 

               Yahwist party.

                          2.  One of the sons of Jeroham from the genealogy of Benjamin.
                     3.  Jeshaiah's father, head of Elam's sons who returned with Ezra. 

       ATHARIAS (AtqariaV (at thar ee as) An official title of Judah's Persian 

               governor. 

        

       ATHARIM  (האתרים)  The way along which the Israelites under Moses were 

               marching at the time they were attacked by the king of Arad. 

        

       ATHBASH  (אתבש)  A Hebrew cryptographic scheme in which the letters of 

               the alphabet in reverse were substituted (The English equivalent would be 

               substituting “zxyw” for “abcd”).   The word is constructed by the first, the 

               last, the second, and the second from last letters of the Hebrew alphabet.  

               The use of Athbash is recognized in the Talmud, Midrashim, and Kabbala. 

        

       ATHENS  (Aqhnai (ath ay nah ee)  The chief city of the ancient district of 

               Attica.   The name of the city was probably derived from that of the god-

               dess Athena.  Paul visited Athens and spoke in the synagogue, in the mar-

               ket place, and in the Areopagus; but he established no church there.    

                                                        A-100

        

                        Discovery of Neolithic pottery on the Acropolis shows there was a set-

              tlement at this place in the Late Stone Age (before 3000 B.C.).   In the Late 

              Bronze Age (around 1600-around 1100) the Acropolis was a strongly forti-

              fied citadel.  At the beginning of the 500s B.C., Solon the Lawgiver is credi-

              ted with doing much to establish the democratic organization of Athens.  In 

              northwestern Athens, the foundations of the oldest known public buildings 

              and sanctuaries were discovered, buildings which included the predecessor

              of the Old Bouleuterion (council building), and the archaic Temple of Apollo;

              in the mid-500s, law courts and an executive committee building were built. 

                         At the end of the 500s came the democratic reforms of Kleisthenes.  

              The Boule or advisory council was increased to 500 persons, 50 from each

              of the 10 tribes into which Kleisthenes also divided the people of the state.

              In each of ten periods of the year, fifty councilors served as Prytanes, or 

              presidents of the council, and met continuously as an executive committee.

                         At the beginning of the 400s, Athens was enclosed by a strong wall, 

              which was constructed or repaired by Themistocles around 525-460 be-

              cause of the threat of a Persian invasion.  By the time the Persians actually 

              destroyed Athens in 480/479, the Older Parthenon and the Old Propylea 

              had already been founded on the Acropolis.  When the Persians were dri-

              ven away, an extensive program of rebuilding and of new building was in-

              stituted.   Under Pericles (461-429), the famous Parthenon and Propylea 

              were erected, and the Erechtheion was built soon afterward. Meanwhile 

              Pheidias (died around 432) and his pupils further beautified the city with a 

              wealth of friezes and a forest of statues.  At this time, Athens had reached

              its glorious age.

                         In the 300s, the financial minister of Athens, Lycurgus (338-326) 

              was probably responsible for what we know as the Dipylon, the building 

              of the earliest known stadium at Athens, and the Theater of Dionysus.  In 

              the Hellenistic period the Syrian king Antiochus IV Epiphanes (175-164) 

              rebuilt the Temple of Olympian Zeus; King Attalus II of Pergamum (159-

              138) gave the large Stoa of Attalus, which still stands on the east side of 

              the ruins of the Agora.

                         The sack of Athens by the Roman general Sulla in 86 B.C. did da-

              mage chiefly to private quarters, and in the reign of Augustus (27 B.C.-14 

              A.D.), new public buildings were added.  By the time of Augustus, the old 

              Agora was filled with buildings, and accordingly a new Roman Agora was

              laid out a short distance to the east.   The ruins of a large structure just 

              north of the Augustan Market are identified as the Stoa and Library of Ha-

              drian (117-138 A.D.). 

        ATHLAI  (עתלי, Yahweh is exalted)  One of those compelled to put away their

              foreign wives in Ezra's time. 

        

       ATONEMENT  (כפר, kaw far) From the phrase “at one”; to be “at one” with 

              someone is to be in harmonious personal relationship with someone.  

              Originally “atonement” meant “reconciliation,” but in modern usage “atone-

              ment” means the process by which the hindrances to reconciliation are 

              removed.   In the Old Testament (OT) the word “atonement” occurs fre-

              quently, and especially in relation to sacrifice.  In the New Testament (NT),

              the word is largely absent, but the idea the word seeks to express is con-

              stantly present.   The Bible assumes that humans are estranged from 

              God, and solely responsible for that alienation, due to their disobedience. 

              The barrier raised by humankind’s past sins must be removed.

                         In the ritual of the Day of Atonement the first of the 2 goats is slain, 

              but the second is driven out into the wilderness, laden with the sins of the 

              people.  Not only can the live scapegoat make atonement, but also the of-

              fering of money for the temple may be an offering “to make atonement for 

              yourselves.”  So, usually it is humans who must make atonement to God, 

              but sometimes it is God who is said “to make atonement,” to pardon or for-

              give.

                         There is a difference in sacrifice between “propitiating”—appeasing

              God in God's anger—and expiating or atoning—removing the hindrance to

              a person's right relationship with God.   Since it's God who sometimes 

              “makes atonement,” and since it was God who provided sacrifice as the 

              means by which his forgiveness could be obtained, we should be reluctant

              to say 2 things: 1st, that sacrifice was merely a human device for overco-

              ming God's reluctance to forgive; and 2nd, that the hindrance to reconcilia-

              tion lies in God's reluctance to forgive.   Sacrifice, therefore, should proba-

              bly be interpreted as an way to remove the barrier of sin. 

                                    A-101

                          In the NT, atonement is related entirely to Jesus Christ and his 

               coming to earth, and especially with his death upon the cross.  The NT de-

               clares that in Christ and his death is all that one needs in order to find his 

               sins forgiven.  The NT assumes the human need of being put right with 

               God, and their own helplessness to put themselves right, whether Jews or 

               Gentiles.

                          The cause of human estrangement from God is human sin and per-

               sistent disobedience to God's will.  God stands ready to forgive and to heal 

               the penitent sinner.  But where humans continue deliberately and defiantly

               in their wrongdoing, God by his very nature can't be complacent, but or-

               dains dreadful penalties as a consequence of sin.  What God does not do 

               is hold aloof in cold contempt from sinners, or turn from them with implaca-

               ble resentment.   Especially in the coming of Jesus, God's purpose was to 

               seek and save the lost.

                          The atoning work of Christ is particularly associated with his death

               on the cross.  “We were reconciled to God by the death of God's Son” (Ro-

               mans 5.10).   The New Covenant, the possibility of a new relationship be-

               tween human and God is in Christ's blood, inaugurated and made effec-

               tive in his self-giving on the cross.   This utter self-giving of Christ, even in 

               death, is the means of a person's return to God.  This access, is ours only 

               “through our faith in Christ.” (Eph. 3.12). 

                          This new means of atonement is proclaimed as the gift of God to 

               humans.  Christ's coming to earth and his self-giving on the cross for hu-

               man sin are God's doing.  The immediate consequence of atonement is 

               that the humans' relationship with God is restored.   All kinds of other     

               good things come from this: a cleansed conscience, new moral power, 

               and freedom from the self's tyranny.  The NT does not explain how Christ

               is able to cancel out the effects of human sin and reconcile them to God.  

               It is content to affirm the truth of it with an abundance of metaphors. 

                          The atoning power of Christ’s death is frequently expressed in 

               terms taken from Judaism’s sacrificial practices.  The “blood” of Christ is 

               actually Christ’s life as it is yielded up to God in complete obedience to 

               God's will. It's the task of theologians to decide whether this metaphor 

               implies that Christ's death is best understood as a sacrifice to God, or 

               whether they declare that what the Jews sought to achieve by sacrifice 

               was accomplished in Christ.

                      The Lamb of God is also understood as sacrificial.   If Jesus is 

               thought of as the paschal (Passover) lamb, his death heralds our great 

               deliverance from bondage, and his blood delivers us from destruction 

               and secures our salvation.   Or he can be thought of as the goat re-

               leased into the wilderness, taking away our sins in the process.  Jesus 

               giving “his life as a ransom for many” is taken literally by some to mean 

               that his life was an agreed price for human freedom from bondage to 

               Satan.  Or it could be just a vivid metaphor by which our Lord declares 

               his purpose of setting all free from their present bondage.  Redemption 

               is also used as a metaphor for the forgiveness of sins. 

                          There is disagreement over certain Greek words which can mean 

               propitiation (appeasement) or expiation (barrier removal).  The words as 

               used by pagan Greeks mean propitiation.   When they are used in trans-

               lating the OT from Hebrew to Greek, they mean expiation and forgive-

               ness.  There is no clear case for insisting that any of these words in its 

               NT context implies that God's anger needs to be placated by Christ's 

               sacrifice on the Cross.  Using “bought” as a metaphor for atonement may

               be thought of not as the means of freeing us from sin, but rather as con-

               firmation of the fact that we belong utterly to God.

                          It is sin which has created the need for atonement, because sin, 

               besides corrupting the heart and deadening the conscience, causes peo-

               ple to be estranged from God, separated from God by an unseen barrier.  

               This barrier of separation God in Christ has broken down.  Neither the 

               church nor the NT offers a precise explanation of how this was done, but 

               both agree that God has prepared the way by which all may be recon-

               ciled to God, through the At-onement offered in Christ.  

            

       ATONEMENT, DAY OF (כפרים (ה) יום , yome  kip poor)  The great annual 

               fast day of Judaism, the 10th day of Tishri, described in Leviticus, on 

               which, when the temple stood, the high priest entered the holy of holies

               to atone for the sins of all Israel; now known as Yom Kippur.    

                                                     A-102

    

                          The annual Day of Atonement is the only fast day prescribed in the 

               Mosaic Law.   Although it developed late in Judaism, it played a formative

               and influential role in all of Judaism.  In the New Testament (NT), the pas-

               sion narratives, the Letter to the Hebrews, and the writings of Paul are all 

               in various ways under its impact.  This vitality helps also explain the fact 

               that the Day of Atonement survived the temple's destruction, even though

               its rites epitomized the sacrificial system.  The function of the sprinkling of 

               blood and of the dismissal of the scapegoat was the same:  to cleanse 

               Israel, its priesthood, and its temple from sin's pollution.

                          The whole exilic and postexilic period of Judaism was increasingly 

               troubled by the people's sinfulness and the holy justice of God.   This pro-

               duced an intense mood of moral and legal obligation in the rabbinic com-

               munity.  In the priestly movement, it led to new developments in worship 

               so that contrition, confession, and especially propitiation became increa-

               singly prominent.

                          The Old Testament (OT) references to the Day of Atonement are 

               confined to the Priestly writings.  As is true of the rituals as a whole, we 

               are told Moses instituted it.  The death of Nadab and Abihu serves as a 

               warrant for the Day.   Ezekiel provided the climate in which the Day of 

               Atonement could develop.  But the Day as described in Leviticus doesn't 

               seem to exist.  The observances in Ezekiel are very likely to be thought of

               as New Year ceremonies. 

                          We must conclude that while a day of atonement was emerging, 

               the Day of Leviticus didn't yet exist. Special fast days were becoming in-

               creasingly frequent, but in even in the days of Nehemiah, the Day was not

               yet generally recognized, but only by the temple priesthood.  It seems pro-

               bable that the Day began as a priestly rite of propitiation that became a 

               day of penitence and atonement for all.

                          Preparation for the Day of Atonement began on the first day of the 

               month.  The day itself began on the evening of the ninth day.  The strict 

               abstinence included eating, drinking, washing, anointing, putting on san-

               dals, and marital intercourse.  

                          The preparation of the high priest was intense.  7 days before the 

               Fast, he left his home to take up residence in his temple apartment.   He 

               officiated at the daily burnt offering and rehearsed the solemn rites he 

               was to perform on the Great Day. On the eve of the Day he ate very lightly, 

               for he was to maintain an all-night vigil.   During the night, younger priests 

               kept him awake by reading.  In the morning, having bathed and in his 

               finest array, he offered the burnt offering which was elaborate on this day.

                          There seemed to be 3 distinct rites of atonement: the sacrifice for 

               the priests; the sacrifice for the people; and the scapegoat.   The sacrifice 

               for his house was a young bull.   Before slaying it, the priest placed his 

               hands on its head and confessed his sins and the sins of his house.   At 

               this point, the Lord's name “Yahweh” is pronounced.  Saying “Yahweh” 

               here continued long after the priest or the people stopped saying it any-

               where else.  With incense and the blood of the slain bull the high priest 

               enters the holy of holies.  He set the smoking censer on the poles in the 

               ark. He then took the blood and sprinkled blood on the mercy seat once, 

               and 7 times he spattered the ark with blood in front, to “cover” the pollu-

               tion of the sins of the priests.

                           The sacrifice for the people's atonement was a goat chosen by a

               lot which said “to the Lord,” from 2 identical specimens.  This goat was 

               slaughtered; its blood was used to sprinkle the ark 7 times.  Then, the 

               bull's blood, the goat's blood and a combination of the 2 were sprinkled on 

               various instruments of the ritual, thereby ridding them of Israel's unclean-

               ness.  While the blood was made holy by the Lord in sacrifice, it was not 

               holy otherwise and was sold for fertilizer.

                          The other of the 2 goats was “for Azazel” and had a red ribbon tied 

               to it.  If the blood sacrifices of the bull and the goat effected the removal of 

               Israel's pollution of the instruments and altars in its holy place, the scape-

               goat rite “For Azazel” serves to remove the guilt of the people themselves.  

               After the confession of sins on the people's behalf, accompanied by laying

               on of hands, the high priest turned the goat over to a man appointed to 

               lead him away; the people participated in the goat's departure, one of 

               which was urging it to be gone.

                          At the edge of a cliff, the attendant tied an end of the scarlet thread 

               around the goat's neck to a rock and then pushed it over the cliff to its 

               death.  The announcement of the completion of the rite was relayed to the 

               temple by stations set up along the route.  This ended the rites of the Day 

               of Atonement.  The priest made a burnt offering and then went home to 

               celebrate with his friends.  The people danced and rejoiced.

                                               A-103

                      It is evident in all this that the Day of Atonement was a tremendous 

                moment of renewal that permeated all Israel and united it in a solemn joy.  

                On this day, it was said, for 3 hours Satan does not accuse Israel before 

                God.  It was a moment when the covenant relationship was pure and 

                God's intervention was anticipated.  The Day of Atonement was the most 

                solemn expression of faith and worship developed by the priestly move-

                ment in postexilic Judaism.  

                           In its basic outlook it was profoundly theocentric, and its central 

                function as to mediate the grace of God in forgiveness and redeeming 

                action.  Since the rituals were elaborate and meticulously performed, 

                there was a danger that they would be performed for their own sake.  In 

                Israel, the blood's effectiveness in mediating forgiveness did not depend 

                on any “magical power;” it depended on the people's faith that God had  

                chosen to use it.   Likewise, in the New Covenant, the blood of Christ 

                avails, not because it is human blood, but because it is the blood of God's 

                chosen one. 

          

       ATROTH-BETH-JOAB (יאב עטרות בית, crowns (sheepfolds) of the house

               of Joab)   A village near Bethlehem, listed as one of the “descendants” of 

               Judah.  The location is unknown. 

        

       ATROTH-SHOPHAN  (עטרת שופן)  A city built by the Gadites in the terri-

              tory conquered from Sihon.  It was probably on a lofty hill about 2.7 km 

              NE of the site of Ataroth, so located as to protect the latter. 

        

       ATTAI  (עתי, timely)   1. Son of Jarha, an Egyptian slave belonging to She-

               shan; father of Nathan; mentioned in the genealogy of Jeraheel.      

               2.  6th in the list of warriors from Gad who went over to David at Ziklag. 

               3.  One of the sons of Rehoboam by his favorite wife, Maacah. 

        

       ATTALIA  ('Attaleia (at ta lay ah)  A harbor city on Asia Minor's southwest 

               coast.   Attalia was founded by and named after Attalus II of Pergamum

               (159-138 B.C.) to be the chief outlet on the coast of Asia Minor.   Frag-

               ments of the Hellenistic defenses can still be seen in the surviving medi-

               eval city walls of what is now Antalya.  The most impressive ancient land-

               mark is a triple gate built by Hadrian. 

        

       ATTHARIAS  (Attarath (at ta ra tah))  An official, named with Nehemiah, as

               giving orders to the priests among the returning exiles.

       AUGURY  (נחש, nakh ash)  A form of Divination.  The term properly refers to 

               the practice of the Greeks and Romans of foretelling future events by the 

               flight, chattering, or singing of bird 

       AUGUSTAN COHORT (opeira Sebasth, o pay ra  se bas te)  A term of 

               disputed meaning. Inscriptions attest to the presence of an Augustan co-

               hort in Syria after 6 A.D. and at Batanea in the time of Agrippa II (around

               50-100 A.D.), which is the one Acts 27 is probably referring to. 

                          We may suppose 2 things about Luke:  that he was aware of the 

               fact that one of the five auxiliary cohorts stationed in Caesarea bore the 

               honorary name of Augusta; and that he uses the name less to define 

               Julius than to promote the prestige of Paul by placing him in “Augustan” 

               custody.  The Roman troops stationed in Caesarea were for the most 

               part local people from Caesarea and Samaria, known locally as Sebaste. 

                          There is confusion and controversy over whether Luke confused 

               Sebastene (of Sebaste) with Sebaste (Augustan).  It is this article's con-

               clusion that Luke is concerned with the prestige which falls upon Paul 

               from the bright imperial name of Augustus, so that the weight falls wholly

               on the fact Paul was put in the charge of a Roman centurion, of the Augu-

               stan cohort, Julius by name. 

        

       AUGUSTUS (AugoustoV (aw goo stos); born September 23, 63 B.C., died  

               August 19, 14 A.D.)  The title given by the Roman Senate on January 16, 

               27 B.C. to Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus, founder of the Roman Empire

               and ruler of the Mediterranean world at the time of Jesus' birth.   The title 

               means “reverend” and in Greek bears implications of divinity.   Others 

               used the title, but as a name it refers to its most famous bearer.  (See also

               entry in the Old Testament Apocrypha/ Influences Outside the Bible sec-

               tion of the Appendix.). 

                                                       A-104

       

       AUTHOR OF LIFE (ArchgoV (ar ke gos) )  An expression referring to Jesus.  

               The Greek word for author is also translated “leader” and “pioneer.”  In 

               Acts 3, Christ is recognized as the author or founder of a new life. 

       AUTHORITY  (שלט (shel ate), exousia (ex oo see ah)) In the Bible, autho-

               rity is closely connected with power, though usually, but not always, distin-

               guished from it.  It covers the actual possession or use of power, the legal

               or moral right to exercise it, the place it can be exercised, and its source.  

               The focus of biblical usage is in the authority which belongs to God alone, 

               all other authority being subordinate to and deriving from it. 

                          In the Old Testament, it is used of the seizure or exercise of political 

               power; it can be distinguished as the legal right rather than the power to 

               do a thing.  When these ideas are applied to God, it is seen that his autho-

               rity is absolute.  But in God's steadfast love, God has imparted some au-

               thority to the natural order (the sun “rules” the day, the moon and stars the 

               night.)  The relationship of human authorities to the absolute divine autho-

               rity is in the mutual relationships of king, priest, and prophet and judge. 

                          Surrounding peoples regarded their kings as divine beings.  But in 

               Israel and Judah, the power of the monarch was always recognized as 

               part, and not the supreme part, of a manifold delegation of authority by 

               God.  Kings must rule in righteousness, judges deal justly, and priests 

               must make due expiation for sin.  The watchman over all was the prophet, 

               bound to no earthly master, God's servant only, speaking with divine autho-

               rity judgments on church and state alike.

                          In Jesus Christ there has been a new disclosure of what divine au-

               thority is like.  As the incarnate Son of God he taught with authority, saying 

               not “Thus saith the Lord,” but “I say to you.”  He claimed to have the autho-

               rity of life and death over himself, which rightly belonged to God alone.  He 

               gave his followers rights as sons of God, which they would not otherwise 

               possess.  Even his trial showed that his sentence by human authorities 

               was within the authority of God.

                          The New Testament claims all other authority is subordinate to 

               God's authority.  The authority of the human magistrate, and even the au-

               thority of the whole world of supernatural beings, including Satan, were 

               entirely subordinate to God.  Christ gave to his followers his own authority 

               to forgive sins, heal diseases, expel demons, and to proclaim the coming 

               of the kingdom. 

        

       AVEN  (און, wickedness)  A term used in Hosea, in the phrase “high places of 

               Aven.”  This phrase is probably a figure of speech referring to the pagan 

               sanctuaries at Dan and Bethel.  Hosea was calling the high places wicked 

               and implying a comparison with other well-known and idolatrous shrines.

       AVENGER OF BLOOD (גואל הדם (go el  had dam), redeemer of blood) The 

               kinsman of a slain man who, as his redeemer, was duty bound to claim 

               back his life from the slayer by killing him. 

                          In societies that lack a strong central authority, the defense of pri-

               vate property and life is the task of the kinship group.  If a person is slain, 

               his kin take vengeance for him upon the slayer, or on one or more of the 

               slayer's kinship group.   This in turn may give rise to counter-vengeance, 

               a blood feud is set in motion, sometimes terminating only with the extinc-

               tion of a family.

                          In biblical Israel, kinship's sovereignty was just beginning to be 

               superseded by communal authority.  Biblical law still recognizes the kins-

               man as responsible for prosecuting homicide, but only “a life for a life,” 

               and only on the actual culprit. Moreover, the law seeks to control the re-

               deemer through the agency of the asylum, which protects the culprit and 

               allows community-justice systems to become involved.  

                         Once they are involved, the redeemer has no further say in the mat-

               ter.  If the culprit is found guilty, the redeemer may carry out sentence, but 

               he isn’t free to pardon or accept money instead.  Under the monarchy, it 

               appears the king had the power to intervene and grant immunity to a sla-

               yer from actions of the avenger.   The kinsman's duty of redeeming blood 

               isn't to be confused with persons in authority undertaking to remove impu-

               ted bloodguilt (e.g. David's execution of Ishbosheth's assassins, and Solo-

               mon's execution of Joab.) 

        

       AVITH  (עוית, ruins)  Hadad's home in Edom, he was King Bedad's son.  Ha-

               dad apparently became king as a result of his father's defeating Midia-

               nites in Moab. 

                                             A-105

        

       AVVA  (עוא, overturn)  One of the towns from which colonists were sent to Sa-    

               maria to replace the Israelite natives deported after the city's capture in 

               722 B.C. 

        

       AVVIM  (העוים, overturned)    1. An aboriginal people of the Canaanites, who 

               lived in villages near Gaza, and were destroyed by the Philistines.     2.  A 

               city in Benjamin, located near Bethel. 

        

       AWL  (מרצע (mar tsay ‘ah); σουβλί (soo blee))  An instrument mentioned in

               connection with piercing the ear lobe to mark one who voluntarily took a 

               vow of perpetual slavery.  It might be made of wood, bone, flint, or metal 

               and was a very common tool beginning with the Stone Age.

        

       AWNING  (מכשה (mik seh), to cover, conceal, spread over)  Literally, covering

               and perhaps a reference to the deck awning used to cover the ship's pas- 

               sengers from the sun. 

        

       AXE  (גרזן (gar zen); מעצד (mah ats awd); axinh (ax ee nay)) A cutting 

               tool placed on a shaft, usually of wood, and used for work in wood and 

               stone; it also saw use as a weapon.  The axe blade was parallel to the 

               shaft, which distinguishes it from the adze, whose cutting edge is perpen-

               dicular to the shaft, and the mattock, which was a combination of axe and 

               adze, or sometimes pick and axe.       

                         The axe was one of the earliest tools invented by humans, the head 

               being made of bone, ivory, flint, or stone, before the advent of metal.  The

               use of the axe as a weapon in the Bible may be inferred from Judges 9, 

               where Abimelech and his men cut brushwood with axes probably doing 

               double duty as tool and weapon, to burn the stronghold of Shechem. 

       AYYAH  (עיה)  One of the towns which were the possession of Ephraim.  It 

               could be the same as the town of "Ai," or it could be located less than 1

               mile from Ai. 

        

       AZAL (אצל) It is found in Zechariah 14 and was once translated as the name 

               of an unidentified city.  The word is now translated as “the side of it.” 

        

       AZALIAH  (אצלהו, Yahu has set apart)  The father of Shaphan, Josiah's 

                secretary, who figured prominently in the publication of the celebrated 

                Book of the Law. 

        

       AZANIAH  (אזניה, Yahu has heard)  A Levite; the father of Jeshua, a witness 

               to the covenant. 

        

       AZAREL  (עזראל, God has helped)  1.  A Korahite warrior who came over to 

               David at Ziklag.     2.  A musician among the sons of Heman at the time of 

               David.   3.  Son of Jeroham; leader of the tribe of Dan under David. 

               4.  One of the sons of Binnui who married a foreign wife.      5.  A priest;

               the father of Amashai, who came to live in Jerusalem after the Exile.

               6.  A priest; a trumpeter in the procession at the dedication of Jerusalem's 

               wall.

       AZARIAH  (עזריה, Yahweh has helped) 1.  Alternate (probably personal) 

               name for Uzziah, king of Judah. 

                         2.  Son of Nathan, or possibly nephew of Solomon, who was in 

               charge of the 12 officers that administered the kingdom's 12 districts.  He 

               probably saw to the prompt delivery of provisions to the royal household.

                         3.  The prophet who encouraged Asa, king of Judah, to undertake a 

               religious reform.

                         4.  Son of Judah's king Jehoshaphat, who was slain when their 

               elder brother, Jehoram, became king.  

                         5.  A high official under Solomon; son of Zadok & brother of Ahimaaz. 
                    6.  High priest under Uzziah, who led the priests who opposed the 

              king's exercise of the priestly office.   

                         7.  High priest under Hezekiah, who prepared storerooms for the con-

               tribution of the people. 

                         8.  A priest included in the list of those who lived in Jerusalem after 

               the Exile; son of Hilkiah and probably chief officer of the House of God. 

                                             A-106

    

                          9.  There are 3 uses of this name in the Chroniclers list of high  

               priests  which might be in reference to some of those priests listed above,

               but they cannot be reliably identified with any specific person. 

                        10.  An ancestor of Heman the musician among the Kohathite Levites 

               and the father of Joel. 

                         11.  The father of a Kohathite named Joel in the time of Hezekiah. 

                         12.  A man of Judah; son of Ethan as listed in the genealogy of 

               Zerah.

                         13.  A man of Judah; son of Jehu and grandson of Obed as listed in 

               the genealogy of Jerahmeel's sons.

                         14.  A Judahite army officer; son of Obed.  He took an active part in 

               the conspiracy to overthrow Athaliah and make Joash king.

                         15.  An officer who conspired to overthrow Athaliah; son of Jeroham.  

               The name is probably not the same as the previous entry, since they have 

               different fathers.

                         16.  A chieftain of Ephraim; son of Johanan; among those who per-

               suaded Pekah to release captives.

                         17.  Son of Jehallelel; a Merarite Levite in the time of Hezekiah.

                         18.  Son Hoshaiah; one of the opponents of the prophet Jeremiah in 

               the Old Testament's Greek version.

                         19.  A Levite who instructed the people in their understanding of the 

               Law in the time of Ezra.

                         20.  A priest included among those who set their seal to the cove-

               nant in the time of Nehemiah.

                         21.  A man of Jerusalem who repaired the wall beside his house; son 

               of Maaseiah.

                         22.  A group leader in the postexilic period; listed among those who

               returned with Zerubbabel.  In the parallel list he is replaced by Seraiah.

                         23.  A prince or priest of Judah, among those who marched at the 

               of Jerusalem’s rebuilt wall.     

                          24.  The original name, in Hebrew, of Abednego, one of the compa-

               nions of Daniel.   

   

       AZAZ  (עזז, strong)  The father of Bela in the genealogy of Reuben. 

        

       AZAZEL  (עזאזל, scapegoat)  The scapegoat dispatched on the Day of Atone-

               ment is described as being consigned “to/for Azazel.”  There are 3 interpre-

               tation of this term.  1st, it characterizes the animal itself, and stands for the 

               goat that departs (i.e (e)scape-goat).  2nd, it describes the place to which 

               the animal was dispatched, where aza means “rugged place” or cliff where 

               the goat is led.  3rd, it is the name of a demon inhabiting the desert.  

        

       AZAZIAH  (עזזיה, Yahu is strong, or Yahu strengthens)    1.  A Levitical musi-

               cian in David's provision for the Jerusalem temple.      2.  The father of Ho-

               shea, the Ephraimite commander under David.      3.  An officer of the 3rd

               rank in the temple during Hezekiah's time. 

      AZBUK  (עזבוק, strength exhausted)  The father of a certain Nehemiah who 

              took part in the rebuilding the wall of Jerusalem after the Exile. 

        

       AZEKAH  (עזקה, hoed ground (?))  A fortress city to the South of the Aijalon 

               Valley, dominating the passage into the valley of Elah, about 14 km north 

               of Beit Jibrin and 24 km northwest of Hebron, halfway between Jerusalem 

               and the Mediterranean Sea.  Ruins of its wall and towers can be seen on 

               the top of Tell Ez Zakariyeh.   To the east of the tell is Khirbet el-Alami, 

               which may be the site of Azekah in the Byzantine period.      

                           Azekeh was one of the places to which Joshua chased remnants of 

               the Canaanite coalition after raising the siege of Gibeon.  It was one of 

               those cities whose fortifications were strengthened by Rehoboam after the 

               revolt of the northern kingdom.  The citadel was a heavily fortified enclo-

               sure on the highest point of the hill on which Azekah was built.  It was one 

               of the last of Judah's fortified cities to fall to Nebuchadnezzar's forces be-

               fore the Jerusalem siege.   After the Exile, Azekah was reoccupied by 

               Jewish returnees.    

                                             A-107

        

       AZEL (אצל, noble) Eleasah’s son, and 1 of the descendants of Jonathan, 

               Saul’s son. He was the father of 6 sons. 

        

       AZGAD (עזגד, Gad is strong)  The head of a family that returned to Palestine     

               after the Exile.  Over 100 male members of this family returned with Ezra.  

               Azgad was one of those who signed Ezra's covenant. 

        

       AZIEL  (עזיאל, strength)  A minor Levite among the harp players when the ark 

              was brought to Jerusalem. 

        

       AZIZA  (עזיזא, the strong one)  One of those forced to put away their foreign 

               wives in the time of Ezra. 

        

       AZMAVETH  (עזמות, strength of death)  1. One of David's heroes, part of the 

               company known as the 30.  Also, he could be the father of Jeziel and Pelet, 

               2 of the ambidextrous slingers and archers from the tribe of Benjamin who 

               joined David's outlaw band at Ziklag.

                     2.  Son of Jehoaddah; one of the descendants of the family of Saul.

                     3.  Son of Adiel.  He was in charge of the royal treasuries under 

           David in Jerusalem.

                    4.  A town identified with modern Hizmeh, 9 km north northeast of 

           Jerusalem.  42 men from there came back from Babylon with Zerubba-

           bel, and some of their singers took part in the dedication of Jerusalem's 

           wall. 

        

       AZMON  (עצמון, strong)  A place on the southern border of Judah; its exact 

               location is now uncertain.  It was the last town to the west before the river

               of Egypt. 

        

        AZNOTH-TABOR (אזנות תבור (summits) of Tabor) A point on the Naph-

                tali’s southern border, near Mt. Tabor. 

        

       AZOR (Azwr)  An ancestor of Jesus. 

        

       AZRIEL  (עזריאל, God is my help) 1. One of the chieftains or heads of fami

               lies in the half-tribe of Manasseh.      2.  The father of Jeremoth, who was 

               head of Naphtali under David.      3.  The father of Seraiah at the time of 

               Jehoiakim. 

        

       AZRIKAM  (עזריקם, my help has arisen)    1.  Son of Azel; a descendant of 

               Saul and Jonathon in Benjamin's genealogy.      2.  “Commander of the pa-

               lace” under King Ahaz; slain in battle by Zichri, an Ephraimite warrior, pos-

               sibly the same as 1. above.     3. Grandfather of Shemiah, Merarite Levite 

               dwelling in Jerusalem.      4.  Son of Neariah; a postexilic descendant of 

               David of through Zerubbabel.   

           

       AZUBAH  (עזובה, a forsaking (setting free?))    1.  The mother of Jehosha-

               phat; daughter of Shilhi.     2. Wife of Caleb; mother of Jesher, Chobab, 

               and Ardon. 

        

       AZZAN  (עזן, the god has shown strength)  The father of the Issacharite lea-

               der Paltiel,  who was selected to help superintend the distribution of wes-

               tern Jordanian Canaan among the tribes to occupy that territory. 

        

       AZZUR  (עזור, helped(?)) 1.  The father of Hananiah, a false prophet from Gi-

              beon.     2. The father of Jaazaniah, an acquaintance of Ezekiel.     3.   A 

              “chief of the people;” one of those who set their seal to the covenant. 

   

                                          A-108