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The extraordinary life of Coniah the Captive – exiled, exalted, and finally executed

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by Damien F. Mackey “The descendants of Jehoiachin the Captive: Shealtiel his son, Malkiram, Pedaiah, Shenazzar, Jekamiah, Hoshama and Nedabiah”. I Chronicles 3:17-18 Introductory The other notable biblical character in chronological range of King Jehoiachin (Jechoniah) of Judah who bore the epithet, “the Captive”, was Haman son of Hammedatha of the Book of Esther (3:1). Unfortunately, though, the original meaning, the Captive (or Prisoner), has been confused with the strikingly similar Greek word for Amalekite, so that Esther 3:1 is now translated as “Haman the Amalekite (or Agagite)”. He was nothing of the sort. I explained the linguistic confusion in e.g. my article: Haman’s nationality a complete surprise https://www.academia.edu/43437539/Haman_s_nationality_a_complete_surprise as follows: …. My view now is that the word (of various interpretations) that has been taken as indicating Haman’s nationality (Agagite, Amalekite, etc.), was originally, instead, an ...
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Nebuchednezzar, so it seems, incarcerated his very own son

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by Damien F. Mackey With the so-called ‘Middle’ Babylonian king, Nebuchednezzar, we arrive at the first of the “two outstanding problems” as referred to at the beginning of this article. What is a Babylonian king doing fighting against an obviously powerful Assyrian king, Ashur-resha-ishi? Two outstanding problems in particular have confronted me in the course of my complex revision and multi-identifications of the king, Nebuchednezzar ‘the Great’ (so-called II). Before recalling both of these, let me re-state who else I think King Nebuchednezzar was. Obviously he was the all-powerful king, “Nebuchednezzar” (Nebuchadnezzar), of the Book of Daniel. Or, was he? Some biblical scholars claim that King Nabonidus, rather than King Nebuchednezzar, more accurately fits the character, “Nebuchednezzar”, who is prominent in the first part of the Book of Daniel: Daniel’s “Nebuchednezzar” a better fit for King Nabonidus? (2) Rethinking Daniel's Nebuchadnezzar as Nabonidus? ...
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Moses neither a holy myth nor wholly a myth

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by Damien F. Mackey “There is no archeological evidence of millions of people living in the narrow strip of the Sinai Desert for 40 years”. Michael R. Burch Michael R. Burch, writing a piece on Moses for QUORA, has stuck himself out on a limb, sawing in the wrong place, with many of his uninformed statements on the topic. Or, as I once said of Fr. Axe, for similar reasons, he “can’t see the wood for the trees”. The very foundation of biblico-history/archaeology for the Old Testament era is the presence of the Middle Bronze I (MBI) nomadic people, bearing artifacts from Egypt. This people follows the same path as did the Exodus Israelites, crossing the Jordan and conquering the peoples in the region (e.g. the destruction of the Bab-edh Dhra complex), before proceeding on into the land of Canaan via Jericho (Tell es-Sultan). The destruction of Jericho, its walls collapsing, and of many other Early Bronze III (EB III) forts and settlements, is exactly what one would ...
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Shattering the Belshazzar myth

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by Damien F. Mackey “… Cäsar von Lengerke described it as “pure fiction” and “a palpable forgery” going on to say that, “the whole story is disfigured and falsified by the author, who was neither an eye-witness of the occurrences, nor accurately acquainted with the history of them”.” Bryan Windle Today (4th December, 2024), at Mass, the Marist priest - a former sheep farmer who is now a shepherd of souls - asked for prayers for a deceased fellow priest, Fr. Bell, confiding to the congregation that he was known amongst his confrères as Ding Dong. I sat bolt upright because I had been preparing this present article on King Belshazzar and was hoping to hit on a title that was a little bit engaging. Maybe, this was a kind of providential prompt. Try as I may, however, I could not think of a juxtaposition of Ding Dong and Bel-shazzar that was anything other than ridiculous. Perhaps a clever reader may be able to suggest something snappy, for future reference. What the ...
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Fitting Ashurbanipal’s so-called brother, Shamash-shum-ukin, into my revised scheme

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by Damien F. Mackey Where are all the depictions of Shamash-shum-ukin? We seem to have only a few of these. If it is true that, as Waldo H. Dubberstein wrote, Shamash-shum-ukin held all Babylonia for sixteen years (“Assyrian-Babylonian Chronology (669-612 B. C.)”, JNES, Vol. 3, No. 1 (Jan., 1944), p. 38) during the very reign of his supposed brother, Ashurbanipal, then this extraordinary situation ought to be apparent, as well, during the reigns of my other versions (alter egos) of this same Ashurbanipal. Most of these alter egos can be found in my recent article: The many faces of Nebuchednezzar (3) The many faces of Nebuchednezzar | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu And a new one has just been picked up in my very latest article: Esarhaddon, re-named Ashur-Etil-Ilani-Mukin-Apli, and then duplicated by historians as Ashur-Etil-Ilani (3) Esarhaddon, re-named Ashur-Etil-Ilani-Mukin-Apli, and then duplicated by historians as Ashur-Etil-Ilani | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu...
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Esarhaddon, re-named Ashur-Etil-Ilani-Mukin-Apli, and then duplicated by historians as Ashur-Etil-Ilani

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by Damien F. Mackey “Esarhaddon (flourished 7th century bc) was the king of Assyria from 680–669 bc …”. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Esarhaddon “Ashur-etil-ilani was a king of Assyria ca. (631 BC - ca.627 BC)”. https://en-academic.com/dic.nsf/enwiki/464149 Here we see that Ashur-etil-ilani supposedly came to the throne of Assyria (631 BC) almost 40 years after the death of the mighty Esarhaddon (669 BC). In between, we are told, there occurred the long reign of Ashurbanipal (669-631 BC). Assyriologists, failing to take careful notice of the fact that Esarhaddon would also be given by Sennacherib the name of Ashur-etil-ilani-mukin-apli, have, in their typically conventionalist Indian file approach, separated Esarhaddon as being a king other than the almost identically named (merely shortened) Ashur-etil-ilani. This is a rupture in Assyrian history of a full generation. Imagine how it must affect, not only Assyrian history, but all other related histories! “...
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The many faces of Nebuchednezzar

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by Damien F. Mackey King Nebuchednezzar, base metal: ‘… the basest of men’ (Daniel 4:17) turned into gold: ‘You are the head of gold’ (Daniel 2:38) Little did I realise at the time, when invited in the Year 2000 by professor Rifaat Ebied to choose between the era of King Hezekiah and the era of (Jeremiah) King Josiah for the subject matter of a doctoral thesis (for more on this, see e. g. my article: Damien F. Mackey’s A Tale of Two Theses (DOC) Damien F. Mackey's A Tale of Two Theses | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu that Hezekiah’s and Josiah’s were in fact the very same era, that Hezekiah was Josiah. ut so radical a revision of Judah must needs be accompanied by, for instance, a similarly radical revision of whoever Assyro-Babylonian dynasts were contemporaneous with these kings of Judah. Amongst the articles that I have written on that score is the detailed: De-coding Jonah (3) De-coding Jonah | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu The upshot of all of this is,...
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