Judith as Gurdi who slew the Assyrian commander
by
Damien F. Mackey
What I think are certainties
First certainty.
Whether or not one believes
that the Book of Judith is a genuine historical account, what is certain, so I
think (and others do, too), is that Charles C. Torrey – who did not believe that
the book was meant to be considered as historical – has shown beyond any shadow
of doubt that the author of the Book of Judith had in mind the highly strategic
city of Shechem when he told about the heroine Judith’s city of “Bethulia” (his
“Betylūa”).
Just read his account of it in
which he establishes “Bethulia”, north, south, east and west, as Shechem:
The Site of ‘Bethulia’
Journal
of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 20
(1899), pp. 160-172 (13 pages)
The name “Bethulia” (“Betylūa”)
can be accounted for as the northern Bethel of Israel’s King Jeroboam I. For,
as Dr. John Osgood has explained it: Techlets · Creation.com “W. Ross in Palestine
Exploration Quarterly (1941), p.22–27 reasoned, I believe correctly,
that the Bethel of Jeroboam must be Shechem, since it alone fills the
requirements”.
And the following site has
accepted Charles C. Torrey’s identification of Judith’s “Bethulia” with
Shechem: Bethulia Explained
“It has widely been speculated that, based on location
descriptions in the book, that the most plausible historical site for Bethulia
is Shechem.
Shechem was a large city in the hill-country of Samaria, on the direct road
from Jezreel to
Jerusalem, lying in the path of the enemy, at the head of an important pass and
is a few hours south of Geba. Both Charles Cutler Torrey and The Jewish Encyclopedia subscribe to this theory. …. the Jewish
Encyclopedia claims that Shechem is the only location that meets all the
requirements for Bethulia's location, further stating: "The identity of
Bethulia with Shechem is thus beyond all question". …. Torrey pointed
out that the description of water being brought to the city by means of an
aqueduct from a spring above the city on the south side is a trait that can
only belong to Shechem. …”.
My second certainty is
that the 182,000-plus Assyrian army that came up against “Bethulia” and its
environs (Judith 7:2):
That
same day their troops went into action, an army numbering
one
hundred and seventy thousand infantry and twelve thousand cavalry,
not
to mention the baggage train and the foot soldiers charged with its
maintenance—an immense multitude.
could only have been Sennacherib’s
ill-fated 185,ooo (cf. 2 Kings 19:35).
And this leads me to a third
certainty.
Sennacherib
must be the “King Nebuchadnezzar … ruling over the Assyrians from his capital
city of Nineveh” of Judith 1:1.
In other
words, the Book of Judith is set in the late neo-Assyrian era, and not the
Chaldean era of King Nebuchednezzar ‘the Great’ (and, a fortiori, it can
have nothing to do with the Maccabean age).
The insertion
into the text of the name “Nebuchadnezzar” is indeed unfortunate, and
confusing, but has been satisfactorily explained by Dr. Stephanie Dalley of Oxford University’s Oriental
Institute, author of the fascinating book, The Mystery of the Hanging Garden of Babylon (2013), according to whom the
ancients commonly confused Sennacherib of Nineveh with Nebuchednezzar of
Babylon.
My fourth certainty
is that Sennacherib was the same as Sargon II, as I argued at length in my
university thesis (2007), and have since done in various other articles, e.g.:
Assyrian King Sargon II, Otherwise Known As
Sennacherib
And that makes me
certain about another thing, too, my fifth.
The heavily
bracketted neo-Assyrian eponym entry:
“The king [against Tabal....] against Ešpai the Kulummaean.
[......]
The king was killed. The camp of the king of Assyria [was
taken......].
On the 12th of Abu, Sennacherib, son [of Sargon, took his
seat on the throne]”.
Eponym Cb6
to which
Assyriologists took the liberty of adding the name “Sargon”, is wrong in (a)
separating Sargon from Sennacherib, and (b) having Sargon killed in this
campaign.
He was not.
Sargon, as
Sennacherib, was murdered some time after this disaster for Assyria,
assassinated by two of his own sons (cf. Tobit 1:21): “But not
fifty days passed before two of Sennacherib’s sons killed him, and
they fled to the mountains of Ararat”.
Certainty
number six.
Eponym
Cb6 above could only be describing the prelude to the rout of the 185,000
Assyrians, when Judith slew the Assyrian commander-in-chief, and the Assyrian
“camp” was overrun. The title “king” would be applicable to the
commander-in-chief, who had been appointed by Sennacherib as King of Babylon.
Isaiah
10:8: “‘Are not my commanders all kings?’ he says”.
He
was Sennacherib’s oldest son, Ashur-nadin-shumi, the Crown Prince, the
treacherous “Nadin” (Nadab) of the Book of Tobit:
“Nadin” (Nadab) of Tobit is the “Holofernes”
of Judith
(12)
"Nadin" (Nadab) of Tobit is the "Holofernes" of Judith
The
name “Holofernes” appears to be, like “Nebuchadnezzar”, another of those
unfortunate confusing of names.
Ešpai the Kulummaean
In my consideration of how to fit Eponym Cb6’s names,
“Ešpai the Kulummaean”, into the Book of Judith’s scheme of things, as I think
these, now, must inevitably be fitted, I had come to the conclusion, in my most
recent article:
Assyriology has Sargon II dying during Tabal campaign
– except that he didn’t
(12) Assyriology
has Sargon II dying during Tabal campaign – except that he didn’t
that Ešpai,
or Ushpia, could only have been Israel’s prince-commander, “Uzziah”,
that is, Isaiah, appointed by King Hezekiah over places such as “Bethulia” and
Chelmon (hence “the Kulummaean”), where the Assyrian Wehrmacht would
shudder to a halt (Judith 7:3, Douay): “All prepared themselves together
to the fight against the children of Israel, and they came by the hill side
unto the top, which looketh toward Dothaim, from the place which is called
Belma unto Chelmon, which is against Esdrelon”.
It
now becomes a seventh certainty that the one who killed the Assyrian
commander (supposedly, but not, Sargon), Gurdi of Kulumma[n], was Judith
herself – the only one who did actually slay Assyria’s commander-in-chief:
“Sargon's final campaign ended in disaster. Somewhere
in Anatolia
[sic], Gurdî of Kulumma, an
otherwise poorly attested figure, attacked the Assyrian camp. …. Gurdî has
variously been assumed to have been a local ruler … or a tribal leader of
the Cimmerians
[sic], during this time allied with the rebels in Tabal. …. In the ensuing
battle, Sargon was killed. The Assyrian soldiers fleeing from the attack were
unable to recover the king’s body. ….
The
unexpected death of Sennacherib’s Crown Prince son (here wrongly given as
Sargon himself) rocked Sennacherib to his superstitious core:
Sargon
forgotten
Sargon's
legacy in ancient Assyria was severely damaged by the manner of his death; in
particular, the failure to recover his body was a major psychological blow for
Assyria.[16] The
shock and theological implications plagued the reigns of his successors for
decades.[133] The
ancient Assyrians believed that unburied dead became ghosts that could come
back and haunt the living.[16][108] Sargon
was believed to be doomed to a miserable afterlife; his ghost would wander the
Earth, eternally restless and hungry.[10][133] Soon
after the news of Sargon's death reached the Assyrian heartland, the
influential advisor and scribe Nabu-zuqup-kena copied Tablet XII of the Epic of
Gilgamesh.[16] This
tablet contains a section eerily similar to Sargon's death, with the miserable
implications described in detail,[e] which
must have left the scribe stunned and distressed.[16] In
the Levant, Sargon's hubris was mocked. It is believed that a foreign ruler
chided in the Biblical Book of Isaiah is
based on Sargon.[16]
Sennacherib
was horrified by his father's death. The Assyriologist Eckart
Frahm believes that Sennacherib
was so deeply affected that he began suffering from posttraumatic
stress disorder.[118] Sennacherib
was unable to acknowledge and mentally deal with what had transpired.[143]
Sargon's
dishonorable death in battle and his lack of a burial was seen as a sign that
he must have committed some serious and unforgivable sin that made the gods
completely abandon him.[144] Sennacherib
concluded that Sargon had perhaps offended Babylon's gods by taking control of
the city.[145]
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