Conventional versus Rabbinical Chronology (11 August 2017, 19 Av, 5777)
Contents:
1. Introduction. The Questions
2. Conventional Accounts versus Rabbinical Ones
3. Additional Points
(a) Was the Mother of Cyrus from Manasseh?
Cyrus the Israelite? by Cam Rea
(b) Cyrus from the Tribe of Gad?
What Spake Zarathustra? by Yair Davidiy
(c) Cyrus descended from Japheth, partner to Darius.
Cyrus In the Aggadah [Talmudic Legends]
(d) Cyrus from Esther and Ahasueris. Persian-Jewish Source
EZR -N MA, Encyclopedia Iranica
(e) Was Cyrus also called Darius (Talmud, Rosh HaShana 3b)?
The Beginning of the Second Commonwealth.
4. Symbol Attributed to Cyrus
5. Carving of Cyrus Compared to President Donald Trump
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1. Introduction. The Questions
Cyrus was the Emperor of Persia (ca. 576 - 529 B.C.E.) who allowed the Jews to return from Babylonia and rebuild the Temple and Jerusalem.
Incidentally his Empire is considered one of the greatest the world has ever known.
In Hebrew the name "Cyrus" is pronounced as "Koresh."
Cyrus is referred to as "Annointed" (Isaiah 45:1) i.e. a kind of Messiah. Cyrus has been understood as a Prototype of the Future Messiah son of Joseph who will bring the Ten Tribes back.
Was Cyrus an Israelite from the Tribe of Gad as indicated by the name of his clan "Pasargadae" i.e. "Son of Gad"?
Was he an Israelite from another Tribe?
Was he descended from Japhet through his father but through his mother from Judah?
Was his mother Queen Esther?
Is our present Chronology of Ancient history all wrong?
In the article below we hall very briefly touch on all these questions.
We may not find conclusive answers for any of them but the queries are worth asking and hopefully the article shall be of interest.
This has knowledge of the Truth is gained, bit by bit.
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2. Conventional Accounts versus Rabbinical Ones
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Conventional.
Conventional accounts have been put together with the aid of Greek historians, archaeological findings, etc.
(a) Before Cyrus. Cambyses. Ahaemenid Family from the Pasargadae Clan
(b) Cyrus
After the final fall of Assyria (ca. 610 BCE) the Medes and Babylonians divided the Assyrian Empire between them.
Later the Babylonians extended their rule, conquered Judah and other areas, destroyed the First Temple and exiled the Jews to Babylon.
The Persians headed by the Achaemenid family were vassals of the Medes and junior partners with them.
Cyrus the Great was the son of a Persian king named Cambyses-1 and a Mede princess. They were from the Achaemenid dynasty, which ruled the kingdom of Anshan, in what is now southwestern Iran.
Cyrus was the Persian ruler and related to the Ruler of the Medes. He may have been, through his mother, the grandson of the Median king. Cyrus rebelled against the Medes and conquered them.
He then conquered Lydia in what is now western Turkey and after that returned eastward and conquered Babylonia.
The Empire of Cyrus was one of the greatest known to history.
Cyrus issued a proclamation allowing the Jews to return to Judah and to rebuild the Temple and Jerusalem.
(c) After Cyrus
Cambyses-2 conquered Egypt. His brother, Bardiya (or an impersonator claiming to be him) succeeded him but was soon replaced by another family member, Darius-1 (i.e. Darius the Great).
Darius conquered Thrace, much of Greece, and parts of Scythia. Darius was allied with the Macedonians against the rest of Greece.
The Greeks rebelled. The Persian fleet was defeated by the Athenians at the Battle of Marathon.
Xerxes-1 (485-465 BCE) was driven out of Macedonia and Greece.
Artaxerxes-1 (465-424 BCE) warred against the Greeks. Aramaic became the official tongue of the Persian Empire in place of Elamite.
Darius-2 (412-407): His queen was Parysatis, a Babylonian princess. His sons Araxerxes-2 and Cyrus-2 fought with each other. The 10,000 Greek mercenaries of Xenophon had been hired by Cyrus-2 but when he suddenly died found themselves deep in Persian territory and needing to return home. The account of their return to Greece is a Classic of Ancient History. Artaxerxes-2 was involved in wars with the Greeks and lost control of Egypt.
Artaxerxes-3 (d. 338 BCE) attempted to reconquer Egypt but was defeated by Nectanebo. He also lost control of Phoenicia. He besieged and destroyed Sidon. Jews who had joined the Phoenicians were exiled to Hyrcania south of the Caspian Sea. He then again attacked Egypt and this time conquered it with the help of Greek mercenaries. Jews from Egypt were re-settled south of the Caspian Sea alongside the others who had been sent there previously. He conquered or controlled much of Greece. He was opposed by Phillip of Macedon. After a struggle Darius-3, governor of Armenia and a member of the family, took over.
Alexander the Great (Alexander III of Macedon, son of Phillip) conquered the Persian Empire (333-330 BCE).
List of Monarchs:
Cyrus 560-530 (529)
Cambyses 530-522
Guamata the Magian (Bardiya) 522
Darius-1 522-486
Xerxes-1 486-465
Artaxerxes-I 465-424
Darius-2 424-405
Artaxerxes-2 405-359
Artaxerxes-3 359-338
Arses 338-336
Darius-3
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Rabbinical
There is no real official Jewish history and chronology of these events.
Different sources sometimes contradict each other.
Nevertheless one of the Rabbinical sources, Midrash Seder Olam, is more revered than the others.
Rabbi Yose ben Halafta was the author of Midrash Seder Olam.
The difference between Seder Olam and conventional accounts is that the Midrash gives about 170 years less.
Immanuel Velikovsky (1895-1979) came to the conclusion that Seder Olam is the more correct.
Dr. Chaim S. Heifetz accepted the findings of Velikovsky and attempted to promote them and show how they corresponded to Seder Olam.
Order of Reign:
Darius the Mede
Cyrus
Ahasveurus
Darius the Persian
Alexander the Great of Macedon
It is claimed that:
"Cyrus, Darius, Xerxes, Artaxerxes and Ahasuerus.... were not personal names, but titles much like King, Kaiser, Caesar and Pharaoh."
Brad Aronson says:
# By demonstrating that Darius son of Hystaspes was the last king of Persia (known ... as Darius the Persian), and that the kings who supposedly reigned after him were no more than alternate names for the kings of Persia and Media up until his time.... #
Putting different sources together we get the following scenario:
The Kings of Babylon were Nebuchadnessar, Evil-Merodach, Belshazzar.
Darius the Mede had divided the Assyrian Empire with Nebuchadnessar of Babylon.
Darius conquered Babylon taking it from Balshazzar. [This contradicts the account of Herodotos who ascribes the conquest of Babylon to Cyrus who came after Darius.]
Darius was also known as Ahaseurus. The capital of Ahaseuris is given as Susa and this fits Susa in Elam becoming the capital at an early date.
cf.
Esther 1:
1 Now it took place in the days of Ahasuerus, the Ahasuerus who reigned from India to Ethiopia over 127 provinces, 2 in those days as King Ahasuerus sat on his royal throne which was at the citadel in Susa.
From the union of Esther and Ahaseuris came Cyrus-1 who liberated the Jews.
This seems the most likely explanation.
See:
Rabbinical Historiography
An Article in our series on Chronological Revision
http://hebrewnations.com/articles/16/chronology/jtime.html
The Heifitz Chronology according to the Sages and supported by Immanuel Velikovsky, see:
"Fixing the History Books. Dr. Chaim S. Heifetz's Revision of Persian History,"
By Brad Aaronson
http://www.starways.net/lisa/essays/heifetzfix.html
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3. Additional Points
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(a) Was the Mother of Cyrus from Manasseh?
Cyrus the Israelite? by Cam Rea
http://www.britam.org/cyrus.html
Cyrus' mother was a Umman Manda princess named Mandane. This Mandane was the daughter of Astyages who was king of the Umman Manda. Now princess Mandane name is of interest and she could be named after two tribes, the first being Manasseh since her name Manda is another possible and plausable form for the name Manasseh due to the "d" being changed or expressed like the letter "s". Thus Mandane becomes Mansae. The other alternative to the Mandane is after the tribe of Dan do to the last letters in her name dane which is another form of Dan or Dani or like the Danes. But let me remind you this is pure speculation12. Now some may say "Umman Manda" means Mede, but this doesn't seem to be the case. In one of the Persian inscriptions the term "Umman-Manda" is used. Cyrus says he conquered them:
"He made the land of Gutium and all the Umman-manda bow in submission at his feet."13
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(b) Cyrus from the Tribe of Gad?
What Spake Zarathustra?
by Yair Davidiy
http://britam.org/zarathustra.html
Isaiah prophesied about Cyrus (Isaiah 44:27-45:4) and the punishment of the Babylonians (43:14;47:14) that Cyrus in part carried out. Josephus says that Cyrus was shown the prophecies of Isaiah mentioning his name and was influenced by them. It may be that the early Persian kings held the Book of Isaiah in reverence and this influenced whoever wrote the Gathas. Cyrus started the Achaemenid dynasty. The Achaemenids belonged to the Pasargadae clan. The early Persians like the early Medes were a confederation of different tribes. Not all these tribes had the same origins. The Pasargadae were the ruling clan of the Persian confederation. They were a small ruling body. Aramaic was the lingua franca of the Persian Empire. The name "Pasargadae" in the local Aramaic dialect of the time would have connoted, "Pasar-(sons of)-Gad" (11). They may originally have been Israelites from the Tribe of Gad. This would explain why they were so attracted to the religion of Zarathustra as it was originally intended.
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(c) Cyrus descended from Japheth, partner to Darius.
Cyrus
In the Aggadah [Talmudic Legends]
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/cyrus
Contradictory opinions are held about Cyrus, the Palestinian rabbis giving a rather favorable account of him while the Babylonians censure him. He was descended from Japheth who was thus rewarded for his commendable behavior toward Noah when drunk (PR 35). He was chosen by God together with Darius as the instrument of His vengeance against Babylon. Influenced by Daniel's prophecy to Belshazzar (Dan. 5:28) Darius and Cyrus slew him and vowed that they would permit the Jews to return to the Land of Israel with the Temple vessels (Song R. 3:4). His name is regarded as an anagram of the word kasher ("worthy"; RH 3b). He pledged to contribute to the Temple service and discovered the treasures that Nebuchadnezzar had hidden (Est. R. 2:1). He wept at the destruction of the Temple and as a reward the Medes received the domination of the world and he was thus vouchsafed to sit on the throne of Solomon (SER 20). Although he granted the Jews permission to rebuild the Temple he permitted the use of wood only, so that it would be easily destroyed should they rebel against him (RH 3b-4a). Moreover when he noticed that the Babylonian cities became desolate because of the emigration of the Jews he forbade them to leave the country (Song R. 5:5).
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(d) Cyrus from Esther and Ahasueris
EZR -N MA
http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/ezra-nama
Encyclopedia Iranica
EZR -N MA, paraphrased versification of the Book of Ezr (q.v.) containing midrashic and Iranian legends. It was composed by ..h n (q.v.), the leading Judeo-Persian poet of the 14th century. ...
The main part of Ezr -n ma deals with the story of the Cyrus the Great, who was called 'God's messiah' (cf. Isaiah 45:1). According to Ezr -n ma, Cyrus was born of Esther and Ahasuerus (q.v.), king of Persia, a legend most probably created to answer two important questions that were debated and elaborated in the Talmud and the midrashim: why a gentile was elected 'God's messiah' and why the miraculous delivery of the Jews from Babylonian exile was at Cyrus' hand. In the second targum of the Book of Esther (q.v.), Cyrus is said to be seated on the throne of the King Solomon, an honor that had not been granted to the kings of Israel (cf. Megillah 12a; Rosh ha-Shanah 3b; Song of Songs Rabbah v, 5; Ecclesiastes Rabbah x, 12). The arguments and reservations expressed in the Jewish sources are not echoed in Ezr -n ma, however; h n indicated no doubt that Cyrus was Esther's son and thus, according to Jewish law, a Jew. This legendary descent also was also mentioned by abar (I, pp. 654, 688, 691, 718). In Ezr -n ma Cyrus' birth is depicted as the gift of God, Who bestowed all beauty and goodness on the child; he is presented as a godly figure of no less stature than the prophets and kings of Israel. His justice, truthfulness, and heroism are unparalleled among the kings of the world.
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(e) Was Cyrus also called Darius?
The Beginning of the Second Commonwealth
http://www.jewishhistory.org/the-beginning-2nd-commonwealth/
Will the Real Cyrus Stand Up?
His announcement leads to one of the first great historical questions in Jewish history. Which Cyrus are we talking about?
In the Persian line of kings we find names like Cyrus, Darius, Xerxes, Artaxerxes and Ahasuerus. However, they were not personal names, but titles much like King, Kaiser, Caesar and Pharaoh. Therefore, many historians think that there were at least three or four Cyruses. We know that there were three Dariuses and three Xerxes. Which one are we dealing with?
To further complicate the matter, there is a Jewish tradition says that Queen Esther gave birth to a son from King Ahasuerus [1 Midrash, Leviticus Rabbah 13:5. ] and that his name was Cyrus.[2 Although he was called Darius, he was also known as Cyrus, the Talmud remarks (Rosh Hashanah 3b; Tosafos, first explanation). ] Technically, according to Jewish law, he was Jewish. Was he the one who succeeded to the throne of Persia and granted permission to the Jews to return to their land and rebuild the Temple? That would make a lot of sense.
However, there are other opinions in Jewish tradition that say there was another Cyrus beforehand who originally granted the Jews permission.[3 Rashi to Haggai (1:1). ] Only later, after difficulties prevented the first Jewish settlers from effectively building the Temple (as we will discuss below), did Esther's son take the throne and allow them to start rebuilding.[4]
4. Symbol Attributed to Cyrus
5. Carving of Cyrus Compared to President Donald Trump
