The Seed of Abraham in Ancient Greece (15 May 2016, 7 Iyar, 5776)
If I may for the moment draw on the Greek legend, Cadmus son of Agenor took of the dragon's teeth and planted them in the ground (Adamah/Edom) "and there rose from the ground armed men whom they called Spartia or Spartans. (Apollodorus, Library 3.4.1-2) The Greeks often wrote their stories in allegorical form. To translate the above into plain English, Cadmus took of the dragon (the tribe of Duke Lotan) the fittest men capable of fighting (the "teeth") and turned them into an elite army. The intention initially was for this army to enforce law and order.
According to some sources, the city of Sparta was built by Cadmus. Other writers would accredit the building of the city to Lacedaemon. As Immanuel Velikovsky rightly pointed out, Cadmus was the person called Nikdima of the time of Shalmaneser III. (Ancient Records of Assyria and Babylonia Vol. 1, p.202, §.561, fn. 1, Daniel David Luckenbill, University of Chicago Press 1926.) It should be stressed that the name Nikdima is our ASSUMED transliteration of the Assyrian. Velikovsky proposed that the name is equivalent to the Greek Nicademus.
That Cadmus came from Phoenicia is confirmed by Euripides (Phoenissae 1.1-6). Herodotus likewise called him "Cadmus of Tyre". (Herod. 2.49) The interchange of the letters 'n' and 'l' in ancient languages is well-attested, as is the dropping of the first syllable. The names Cadmus, Lacedaemon and Nikdima are all variant spellings of the same name. Knowing that he left Phoenicia in the time of Shalmaneser III gives us the earliest date for the foundation of the city of Sparta in Greece. Note that Cadmus was ruler of the Spartans. Although the Spartans were Edomites, Cadmus himself was NOT an Edomite.
These Cadmeans who ruled over the Spartans continued to rule over them for a couple of centuries BEFORE the Dorians arrived. Areus, the king of the Lacedaemonians who wrote to Onias the High Priest, was a Dorian.
Archaeologists would have us believe that the city of Troy was destroyed in the Late Helladic IIIC period, which they date to around 1200 BCE. The city of Miletus was likewise destroyed around the same time. When Miletus fell, half the population went north and settled in Lydia by permission of their king Gyges. (Strabo 13.1.22) This was during the time of Ashurbanipal king of Assyria. The other half of the population set sail and ended up in Pelusium in Egypt during the time of Psammetichus I. This also was during the time of Ashurbanipal king of Assyria.
Pausanias dated the destruction of Troy fifteen generations prior to the time of Pyrrhus king of Epirus (Pausanias, Description of Greece 1.11.1) who ruled around 297 BCE. Even allowing for a generous 30 years to a generation, this places the fall of Troy no earlier than 750 BCE reducing to 675 BCE if we use a more realistic 25 years to a generation, which agrees nicely with the date being suggested here. There is no way that this can be stretched to an unrealistic 1200 BCE being the date which is usually proposed.
This late eighth century date is also supported by Appian who informs us that:-
"The Phoenicians settled Carthage, in Africa, fifty years before the capture of Troy. Its founders were either Zorus and Carchedon, or, as the Romans and the Carthaginians themselves think, Dido, a Tyrian woman, whose husband had been slain clandestinely by Pygmalion, the ruler of Tyre." (Appian, Punic Wars 1.1)
Zorus is merely a variant spelling of Tyre whilst Carchedon is a variant spelling of Kar-Haddon, the Greek transliteration of the Phoenician name Kar-Hadash meaning 'New City'. This is the sort of contrived nonsense we get from these early historians.
The founding of Carthage in Africa is generally dated to around 825 BCEsuch date being attested by Josephus who dates its foundation 143 years after Solomon, (Josephus, Against Appian 1.17) whilst Eusebius, quoting from Timaeus, would have us believe that Carthage was founded in the 38th year before the first Olympiad (i.e. 814 BCE). (Eusebius, Chronicle, The Romans 106)
Philistos, a Greek author who was born around 435 BCE, likewise placed the foundation of Carthage a "man's life length" before the fall of Troy. (See article on Aeneas at www.varchive.org/dag/aeneas.htm) All of these dates suggest that Troy fell sometime around 750-770 BCE and NOT the 12th Century BCE as argued by archaeologists. My research shows that the city of Troy actually fell around 700 BCE, wheneitherSennacherib or (more likely) Esarhaddon was king in Assyria.
According to Thucydides, the Boeotians arrived in Greece from Thessaly sixty years after the fall of Troy and the Dorians arrived in Greece 80 years after the fall of Troy. (Thucydides 1.12) For those who are interested, Thessaly is a metathesis of Shutelachi: "These are the sons of Ephraim after their families: of Shuthelah, the family of the Shuthalahi..." (Num. 26:35)
The Boeotians built the city of Ascra in Greece. Ascra is a variant spelling of Issachar, whilst Boeotia is a Greek transliteration of the Hebrew name Ba'asha. You will note from 1 Kings 15:27 that Ba'asha belonged to the tribe of Issachar. According to Pausanias, the city of Ascra was built by someone called Oeoclus (Pausanias, Description of Greece 9.29.1), where Oeoclus is the Greek transliteration of the Hebrew name Yigal. During the time of Moses, Yigal son of Yoseph of the tribe of Issachar was one of the spies sent to spy out the Promised Land. (Num 13:7) Needless to say, Yigal died in the wilderness, but his family name clearly lived on. The city of Achelous in northern Greece was also named after this family. (NB: Achilles is yet another variant spelling of this name.)
These Boeotians became the fierce Celtic tribe known as Boii, a people who gave their name to the ancient kingdoms of Bohemia and Bavaria. What many people do not realize is that they also gave their name to the river Baetis as well as the ancient regions of Baeturia and Baetica in Spain. (If you look at the second map on Wikipedia, the one under History, you will see that they purportedly turned back at the Spanish border, which was clearly not the case.)
In discussing the places mentioned in the triumphal arch, which Pliny tells us was erected in the Alps in honour of Augustus Ceasar,* the Boii are not mentioned, but the name Isarchi is mentioned alongside the Illyrian tribes of Breuni and Genaunes. (Pliny, Nat. Hist 3.20 [137] in Harry Rackham's translation or 3.24 in John Bostock's translation) Isarchi, who are not mentioned by anyone else, is a metathesis of Issachar. The river Iscar (called Oescus by Pliny)Â in the Balkans in Thrace (Pliny, Natural History 3.26 [149] or 3.29 in John Bostock's translation) will likewise have been named after this tribe.
* This arch cannot be identified, but writing in 1942, H. Rackham reports that an arch with a portion of this inscription remaining, stood, in fairly recent times, near Nicaea in Albania. (fn. g, p.100, Pliny, Natural History Books 3-7, Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press, 2006 edition.)
The Boii eventually joined forces with the Suebi, who are descended from Yashub son of Issachar, and both settled in what is today known as Switzerland.
The point of this exercise is to demonstrate that there is no way that these Boeotians can possibly have arrived in Greece before Ba'asha king of Israel was even born! According to this revised date for the destruction of Troy, the Boeotians arrived in Greece sometime during the reign of Nebuchadnezzar II. The Dorians likewise arrived sometime after that, during the time of the Chaldean Empire.
Arius, who wrote his letter to Onias the High Priest, is described as a Lacedaemonian. Herodotus informs us that these Lacedaemonians were Dorians. (Herod. 1.56) We should bear in mind that the Lacedaemonians received their name from Cadmus, who was NOT a Dorian. The Spartans themselves were likewise not Dorians. This statement that the Lacedaemonians were Dorians arises because the Dorians took control of Sparta. Note that Josephus informs us that Arius sealed his letter with an eagle with a dragon in its claws. That 'dragon' in its claws was the Spartan people over whom they were ruling. The eagle represents the tribe of Menashe.
Ignoring all the rubbish which the Greeks have written, the Dorians actually came from the city of Dor in northern Israel. Excavations at Dor have revealed that Dor was 'Greek' long before the Greeks actually arrived:-
"The first Greek imports to Dor date as early as the tenth century bce. This trickle is greatly enhanced after Assyrian occupation, and, by the fourth century bce, most of the table ware at Dor is imported from Greece. By the mid-fourth century, Hellenic-type wares are probably locally produced and distributed. Figurines of the Persian period show deities with Greek-type attributes alongside traditional Phoenician 'fertility goddesses' and types associated with the ruling Persian cosmology. Ostraca and graffiti show that the locally spoken language was changing from Phoenician to Greek decades before the political fact of Alexander's occupation. On the other hand, some aspects of traditional Phoenician culture persist well into the Hellenistic period and even later, betraying the true nature of this 'Hellenized' society." (Dor – Hellenization of the East http://dor.huji.ac.il/HL_east.html)
The city of Dor belonged to the family of Yoseph, which comprised the tribes of Ephraim and Menashe. (1 Chron. 7:29) During the time of kings David and Solomon, Ephraim and Menashe were dwelling in Jerusalem. (1 Chron. 9:3) It will not then come as a surprise for you to learn that the roof to Solomon's palace, according to Josephus, was built "according to the Corinthian [i.e. Doric] order..." (Antiquities 8.5.2) or that the feet of the table, on which were placed the shewbread in the temple, were likened by Josephus to "those which the Dorians put to their bedsteads". (Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews 3.6.6.)
Basically, what archaeologists are calling Doric-Greek is actually Dorian-Israelite!
I would here issue a word of caution. The name Dorian was attached to other tribes besides the House of Joseph. Herodotus, for example, records a certain Lacedaemonian who insisted that he was not Dorian, but Achaean (Herod.5.72) Pausanias likewise informs us that "the Megarians changed their customs and dialect and became Dorians..." (Pausanias, Description of Greece 1.39.5) The name Megara, which supposedly means 'chambers', is Hebrew - mem + ayyin + reysh + hay. These Megarians (cave-dwellers) were Edomites. Pausanias also tells us that the Sicyonians "became Dorians" (2.7.1). The Sicyonians were also Edomites. One therefore has to be very careful how we interpret the Greek records.
The Messenians were Dorians and spoke a Dorian dialect. (Pausanias 4.27.11) The name Messenia is a metathesis of the name Menashe. Aristomenes, a leader of the Messenians, is recorded as having had an eagle on his shield. (Pausanias 4.16.7) The eagle represents the tribe of Menashe.
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