Biblically Compatible Archaeology and Geography

‘But when his captains and tribunes were come, and all the chiefs of the army of the king of the Assyrians, they said to the chamberlains ‘Go in, and awake him, for the mice coming out of their holes, have presumed to challenge us to fight’.” Judith 14:11-12 Did an infestation of mice destroy Sennacherib’s 185,000-strong army? Metaphorically speaking, yes. “Mice” was how the neo-Assyrians were wont to describe their contemptible enemies, and the quote from the Book of Judith above is a perfect example of this. Did not the Assyrian king, Tiglath-pileser, say about Rezin of Damascus: That one (Rezin of Damascus) fled alone to save his life*** and like a mouse he entered the gate of his city. (Sir Henry Rawlison,  Assyrian Discovery,  p. 246) And, in the very same era of the Judith incident, we read this of Sargon II: https://erenow.net/ancient/ancient-iraq-third-edition/20.php “Yet Babylon under Merodach-Baladan remained as a thorn in the side of Assyria, and...

When reading through Anthony Everitt’s 392-page book,  Hadrian and the Triumph of Rome  (Random House, NY, 2009), I was struck by the constant flow of similarities between Hadrian and Augustus - which the author himself does nothing to hide. Here are some of them: Pp. 190-191: Ten years into his reign, Hadrian announced to the world that, speaking symbolically, he was a reincarnation of Augustus. P. x: … Augustus, whom Hadrian greatly admired and emulated. P. 145: Flatterers said that [Hadrian’s] eyes were languishing, bright, piercing and full of light”. …. One may suspect that this was exactly what Hadrian liked to hear (just as his revered Augustus prided himself on  his  clear, bright eyes). P. 190: … the true hero among his predecessors was Augustus. For the image on Hadrian’s signet ring to have been that of the first  princeps  was an elegantly simple way of acknowledging indebtedness …. Later, he asked the Senate for permissio...

  480 × 360 by   Damien F. Mackey         https://www.gotquestions.org/King-Jehoram-Joram.html “ There are two kings in the Bible referred to as King Jehoram/Joram. The first was the son of King Jehoshaphat, and he ruled in the southern kingdom of Judah from 853 to 841 BC. The other King Jehoram was the son of the wicked King Ahab, and he ruled in the northern kingdom of Israel from 852 to 841 BC. The name Joram is a shortened form of Jehoram . Complicating matters is the fact that both Jehorams were brothers-in-law to each other ” . King Jehoram of Judah I have confidently identified with – following Peter James – El Amarna’s Abdi-Hiba of Urusalim. For now, I would accept for Jehoram (as a rough approximation) the date of c. 850 BC. That date, however, will need to be lowered considerably as my revision progresses.   Turning to convention, Abdi-Hiba is thought to have lived around 1330 BC, in pre-Israelite ...

  by   Damien F. Mackey     Hazael’s being Na’aman (if that is who he was) would account for the curious fact that Yahweh had commissioned the prophet Elijah at Sinai to anoint a Syrian. For Na’aman was a Syrian who had (in his own fashion) converted to Yahwism.         Dr. Velikovsky had put together quite a reasonable case for EA’s Ianhama to have been the biblical Na’aman the leper.   Might this Ianhama, though, have been a bit too early for the healing of Na’aman by the prophet Elisha: “ Yanhamu began his service under Amenophis III” ( E. Campbell, The Chronology of the Amarna Letters, Section C. “Yanhamu and the South”, 1964, p. 93) - the miraculous biblical incident having occurred not very long, apparently, before the assassination of Ben-Hadad I? The latter event I would estimate to have been significantly later than the time of pharaoh Amenhotep ‘the Magnificent’.   Another pos...

 by Damien F. Mackey “‘What kind of towns are these you have given me, my brother?’ he asked. And he called them the Land of Kabul, a name they have to this day”. I Kings 9:13     King Hiram, the merchant king, generally drove a hard bargain, as exemplified for example by his threat to the prince of Dêr in Babylonia. On this, see my article: King Hiram the Historical and Hiram Abiff the Hysterical https://www.academia.edu/30567350/King_Hiram_the_Historical_and_Hiram_Abiff_the_Hysterical And he showed his utter disgust to his “brother”, Solomon, whose “twenty towns in Galilee” Hiram considered to be quite unworthy of his own generosity (I Kings 9:11-12): King Solomon gave twenty towns in Galilee to Hiram king of Tyre, because Hiram had supplied him with all the cedar and juniper and gold he wanted. But when Hiram went from Tyre to see the towns that Solomon had given him, he was not pleased with them. Cyrus Gordon, w...