Wise Vizier Ahikar’s Babylonian Identity?
by
Damien F. Mackey
The story of Ahikar is one of the most
phenomenal in the ancient world in that it
has become part of many different
literatures and has been preserved in several
different languages: Syriac, Arabic,
Armenian, Greek, Slavonic, and Old Turkish.
The most ancient recension is the
Aramaic, found amongst the famous 5th-cent.
BC papyri that were discovered … on
Elephantine Island in the Nile. The story
worked its way into the Arabian nights
and the Koran; it influenced Aesop, the
Church Fathers as well as Greek
philosophers, and the OT itself.
In the course of my attempted ‘folding’ of
the supposed C12th BC ‘Middle’ Assyro-Babylonian history with that of the C8th
BC ‘Neo’ Assyro-Babylonian era in my university thesis:
A Revised History
of the Era of King Hezekiah of Judah
and its Background
I believed that I may have found - over
and above some very compelling Babylonian-Elamite parallels - a connection
between a ‘Middle’ kingdom vizier of great wisdom and a similarly celebrated
“Neo’ kingdom sage.
I wrote about this as follows (Volume
One, pp. 185-187):
A Legendary Vizier (Ummânu)
Perhaps
a further indication of a need for merging the C12th BC king of Babylon, Nebuchednezzar
I, with the C8th BC king of Assyria, Sargon II/ Sennacherib, is that one finds
during the reign of ‘each’ a vizier of such fame that he was to be remembered
for centuries to come. It is now reasonable to assume that this is one and the
same vizier.
I
refer, in the case of Nebuchednezzar I, to the following celebrated vizier: … “The
name Esagil-kini-ubba, ummânu or “royal secretary” during the reign of Nebuchednezzar I, was preserved
in Babylonian memory for almost one thousand years – as late as the year 147 of
the Seleucid Era (= 165 B.C.) …”.
Even
better known is Ahikar (var. Akhiqar), of Sennacherib’s reign, regarding whose immense popularity we read: ….
The
story of Ahikar is one of the most phenomenal in the ancient world in that it has
become part of many different literatures and has been preserved in several different
languages: Syriac, Arabic, Armenian, Greek, Slavonic, and Old Turkish. The most
ancient recension is the Aramaic, found amongst the famous 5th-cent. BC papyri that were discovered …
on Elephantine Island in the Nile. The story worked its way into the Arabian
nights and the Koran; it influenced Aesop, the Church Fathers as well as Greek
philosophers, and the OT itself.
According
to the first chapter of [the Book of Tobit]: “Ahikar had been chief cupbearer,
keeper of the signet, administrator and treasurer under Sennacherib” and he was
kept in office after Sennacherib’s death. At some point in time Ahikar seems
to have been promoted to Ummânu, or Vizier, second in power in the mighty kingdom of Assyria,
“Chancellor of the Exchequer for the kingdom and given the main ordering of
affairs” (1:21, 22). Ahikar was Chief Cupbearer, or Rabshakeh
… during Sennacherib’s Third Campaign when
Jerusalem was besieged (2 Kings 18:17; Isaiah 36:2). His title (Assyrian rab-šakê) means,
literally, ‘the great man’. It was a military title, marking its bearer amongst
the greatest of all the officers. Tobit tells us that Ahikar (also
given in the Vulgate version of [the Book of Tobit] as Achior) was
the son of his brother Anael (1:21). Ahikar
was therefore Tobit’s nephew, of the tribe of
Naphtali, taken into captivity by ‘Shalmaneser’.
This Ahikar/Achior was -
as I shall be arguing in VOLUME TWO (cf. pp. 8, 46-47) - the
same
as the important Achior of [the Book of Judith].
Kraeling,
whilst incorrectly I believe suggesting that: …. “There does not appear to be
any demonstrable connection between this Achior [of the Book of Judith] and the
Ahikar of the [legendary] Aramaic Story”, confirms however that the name Achior can be
the same as Ahikar ….
….
I had
suggested above that Adad-apla-iddina, ruler of Babylon at the time of
Tiglathpileser I, may have been the same person as Merodach-baladan I/II. I may
now be able to strengthen this link to some degree through the agency of the
vizier just discussed. For, according to Brinkman: …. “… Esagil-kini-ubba served as ummânu …
under Adad-aplaiddina…”.
[End of quote]
According to Irving L. Finkel (Adad-apla-iddina,
Esagil-kīn-apali, and the Series SA.GIG, p. 144): “Esagil-kīni-ubba (Saggil-kīnam-ubbib), probably the
author of the Babylonian Theodicy, is shown to have served as ummānu both under Nebuchadnezzar I and
Adad-apla-iddina …”. (http://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/saao/knpp/downloads/finkel_fs_sachs.pdf).
This is interesting because The
Babylonian Theodicy has been likened to the biblical Book of Job. For
example (Davis Hankins, “A Taste of
the Wise Life: Job and Theodicy”: http://www.oxfordbiblicalstudies.com/resource/lessonplan_5.xhtml):
Ancient Near
Eastern Parallels
The book of Job has much in common with several important ancient Near
Eastern texts associated with "Wisdom literature." While it is not
certain that the book of Job depended upon any of these texts in particular,
they are all witness to a similar conception of the world. It would be helpful
to introduce students to some of these texts, such as The Babylonian
Theodicy or The Eloquent Peasant, and compare and contrast them with
the book of Job. In particular, note the dialogic form of these texts, as well
as their common sources of knowledge and common methods of reasoning. For more
information, see the article on the ancient Near Eastern parallels to the book of Job.
[End of quote]
And Job (= Tobias) was Ahikar’s very cousin. See
my:
Stellar Life and Career of the holy Prophet Job
It
has been suggested by scholars that ummānu styled
themselves on the antediluvian sages. According to Samizdat (July, 2015), for
instance: https://therealsamizdat.com/2015/07/
The ummânū fashioned
themselves—consciously or perhaps unconsciously—into the scribal heirs of the
antediluvian sages, themselves closely allied with Ea, the patron deity
of the ummânū.
This relationship of scholarly
succession gave mythological support for the roles of the ummânū at
court and in society as ritual experts, counselors to the king, and authors of
important cuneiform works. ….
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