Review of Time & Prophecy - Hezekiah - part 4 - Sargon is Sennacherib
“As Tadmor has observed, such a statement
never appears in the titulary of Sennacherib. This omission is surprising since
Sennacherib was unquestionably [sic] the legitimate heir of Sargon II”.
Toby has further
written:
Greetings all,
I have mentioned
several times now, that there is evidence that Sargon and Sennacherib are
indeed the same person. I do not claim that their reigns overlapped each other,
but I believe that Sargon (the Assyrian name) came to be called Sennacherib … much
as Tiglathpileser (Assyrian) came to be called PUL …. I have given evidence
from the Eponym and Assyrian King lists; and I have given evidence from
scripture.
But there is
more.
This part is
just a few snippets from … Damien Mackey’s internet article called ‘Sargon is
Sennacherib’. It is a fairly long article, but I wanted you all to see at least
a couple of his major points. The rest of this section is all from his article:
What had struck me, however,
was that Sargon's 12th and 15th year campaigns were worded very similarly to
Sennacherib's first two campaigns.
Sargon: "In my twelfth
year of reign, Marduk-apal-iddina [Merodach-baladan] and Shuturnahundu, the
Elamite ... I ... smote with the sword, and conquered ..."
Sennacherib: "In my first
campaign I accomplished the defeat of Merodach-baladan ... together with the
army of Elam, his ally ....".
And:
Sargon: "Talta, king of
the Ellipi ... reached the appointed limit of life ... Ispabara [his son] ...
fled into ... the fortress of Marubishti, ... that fortress they overwhelmed as
with a net. ... people ... I brought up."
Sennacherib: "... I
turned and took the road to the land of the Ellipi. ... Ispabara, their king,
... fled .... The cities of Marubishti and Akkuddu, ... I destroyed ....
Peoples of the lands my hands had conquered I settled therein".
Added to this was the
possibility that they had built their respective 'Palace Without Rival' close
in time, because the accounts of each were worded almost identically …. Eric
Aitchison alerted me to the incredible similarity in language between these two
accounts:
Sargon: "Palaces of
ivory, maple, boxwood, musukkani-wood (mulberry?), cedar, cypress, juniper,
pine and pistachio, the "Palace without Rival"2a), for my royal abode
.... with great beams of cedar I roofed them. Door-leaves of cypress and maple
I bound with ... shining bronze and set them up in their gates. A portico,
patterned after a Hittite (Syrian) palace, which in the tongue of Amurru they
call a bit-hilanni, I built before their gates. Eight lions, in pairs, weighing
4610 talents, of shining bronze, fashioned according to the workmanship of
Ninagal, and of dazzling brightness; four cedar columns, exceedingly high, each
1 GAR in thickness ... I placed on top of the lion-colossi, I set them up as
posts to support their doors. Mountain-sheep (as) mighty protecting deities, I
cunningly constructed out of great blocks of mountain stone, and, setting them
toward the four winds ... I adorned their entrances. Great slabs of limestone,
- the (enemy) towns which my hands had captured I sculptured thereon and I had
them set up around their (interior) walls; I made them objects of
astonishment".
Sennacherib: "Thereon I
had them build a palace of ivory, maple, boxwood, mulberry (musukannu), cedar,
cypress ... pistachio, the "Palace without a Rival"2a), for my royal
abode. Beams of ceda .... Great door-leaves of cypress, whose odour ... I bound
with shining copper and set them up in their doors. A portico, patterned after
a Hittite (Syrian) palace, which they call in the Amorite tongue a bit-hilani,
I constructed inside them (the doors) .... Eight lions, open at the knee,
advancing, constructed out of 11,400 talents of shining bronze, of the
workmanship of the god Nin-a-gal, and full of splendour ... two great cedar
pillars, (which) I placed upon the lions (colossi), I set up as posts to
support their doors. Four mountain sheep, as protecting deities ... of great
blocks of mountain stone ... I fashioned cunningly, and setting them towards
the four winds (directions), I adorned their entrances. Great slabs of
limestone, the enemy tribes, whom my hands had conquered, dragged through them
(the doors), and I set them up around the walls, - I made them objects of
astonishment".
……
Conventional Theory's
Strengths
(i) Primary
I can find only two examples
of a primary nature for the conventional view.
By far the strongest support
for convention in my opinion is Esarhaddon's above-quoted statement from what
is called Prism S - and it appears in the same form in several other documents
as well - that he was 'son of Sennacherib and (grand)son of Sargon'. Prism A in
the British Museum is somewhat similar, though much more heavily bracketted ….:
[Esarhaddon, the great king,
the mighty king, king of the universe, king of Assyria, viceroy of Babylon,
king] of [Sumer] and Akkad, [son of Sennacherib, the great king, the mighty
king], king of Assyria, [(grand)son of Sargon, the great king, the mighty
king], king of Assyria ....
The first document, Prism S,
would be enough to stop me dead in my tracks, were it not for other evidences
in support of my proposed merger.
The other, quasi-primary
evidence is in regard to Sennacherib's accession. One reads in history books of
supposed documentary evidence telling that Sargon was killed and that
Sennacherib sat on the throne. Carl Olaf Jonsson gives it, bracketed again, as
follows ….:
For the eponym Nashur(a)-bel
(705 BC) one of the Eponym Chronicles (Cb6) adds the note that the king (=
Sargon) was killed, and that Sennacherib, on Ab 12, took his seat on the
throne.
What one notices in all of the
above cases of what I have deemed to be primary evidence is that bracketting is
always involved. Prism S, the most formidable testimony, has the word
"(grand)son" in brackets. In Prism A, the entire titulary has been
square bracketed, which would indicate that Assyriologists have added what they
presume to have been in the original text, now missing. And, regarding
Sennacherib's accession, Jonsson qualifies the un-named predecessor king with
the bracketted "(= Sargon)".
It was customary for the
Assyrian kings to record their titulary back through father and grandfather.
There are two notable exceptions in neo-Assyrian history: interestingly, Sargon
and Sennacherib, who record neither father nor grandfather. John Russell's
explanation for this omission is as follows ….:
In nearly every other Assyrian
royal titulary, the name of the king was followed by a brief genealogy of the
form "son of PN1, who was son of PN2," stressing the legitimacy of
the king. As Tadmor has observed, such a statement never appears in the
titulary of Sennacherib. This omission is surprising since Sennacherib was
unquestionably [sic] the legitimate heir of Sargon II. Tadmor suggests that
Sennacherib omitted his father's name either because of disapproval of Sargon's
policies or because of the shameful manner of Sargon's death ....
This may be, but it is
important to note that Sargon also omitted the genealogy from his own titulary,
presumably because, contrary to this name (Sargon is the biblical form of
Šarru-kên: "the king is legitimate"), he was evidently not truly the
legitimate ruler. Perhaps Sennacherib wished to avoid drawing attention to a
flawed genealogy: the only way Sennacherib could credibly have used the standard
genealogical formulation would have been with a statement such as
"Sennacherib, son of Sargon, who was not the son of Shalmaneser", or
"who was son of a nobody", and this is clearly worse than nothing at
all.
That there was some unusual
situation here cannot be doubted. And the bracketing that we find in
Esarhaddon's titulary may be a further reflection of it. By contrast,
Esarhaddon's son, Ashurbanipal, required no such bracketing when he declared: I
am Assurbanipal ... offspring of the loins of Esarhaddon ...; grandson of
Sennacherib ...".
….
Comments