4:27b). Therefore, we would expect the Mountain of God (= Mt. Sinai/Horeb) to be located somewhere along the Trans-Sinai Highway.Based on the travel t

inary assessment is that the mountain fits the
Biblical requirements very well: 1. It is located at the eastern end of the Trans-Sinai Highway (Exod. 4:20, 27). 2. It is located near Midian. Moses pastured the flock of Jethro at Sinai (Exod. 3:1) and Jethro and Hobab, Moses’ brother-in-law, both visited Moses while he was at Mt. Sinai with the Israelites (Exod. 18:5; Num. 10:29–30). 3. It is in the right location­approximately two month’s journey from Rameses (Exod. 19:1; Num. 33:3), and 11 day’s journey from Kadesh Barnea (Deut. 1:2). 4. It is in the territory of Edom (Deut. 33:2, Judges 5:4; Hab. 3:3). In addition to meeting these Biblical requirements, Gebel Khashm et-Tarif is a low mountain (2,870 ft.), in accordance with Jewish tradition. Israeli investigator Uzi Avner located 33 rectangular "open air sanctuaries"east and south of the mountain (1984: 120–21). Each one is ca. 25 x 50 ft.in size and comprised of a single row of stones. Religious shrines do not normally appear in such large numbers in a single location. They are typically individual structures with cultic material inside. No cultic material was found in association with the buildings at Gebel Khashm et-Tarif. A far more reasonable hypothesis is that the structures are domestic in nature, perhaps stones placed around the periphery of tents. Gebel Khashm Et-Tarif: Could this be Mount Sinai?During the brief visit of the ABR team in March 2007 we discovered five similar buildings south of the mountain, suggesting there are many more such structures in the vicinity. Are the buildings the remains of an ancient campsite? In order to postulate a connection between the buildings and the Israelites, it is necessary to demonstrate that they date to the time of the Exodus. Dating the buildings at Gebel Khashm et-Tarif will be a major objective of future ABR research.Bibliography Avner, Uzi1984 Ancient Cult Sites in the Negev and Sinai Deserts. Tel Aviv 11: 115–31, Pls. 13–24.Crew, Bruce R.2002 Did Edom's Original Territories Extend West of the 'Wadi Arabah? Bible and Spade 15: 2–10.Wood, Bryant G.2000 Beneath the Surface: An Editorial Comment. Bible and Spade 13: 98–99. Recommended Resources for Further Study NIV ArchaeologicalStudy Bible Bible and SpadeCD ROM Archaeology and the Old Testament Please help ABR continue to post these freearticles by making a donation of any size today. Donate



Nahum, Nineveh and Those Nasty Assyrians
Tags: nahum, nineveh, assyria, iraq, ashurbanipal, nabopolassar, british museum, thebes--> This article was first published in the Fall 2003 issue of Bible and Spade.If I mentioned the city Nineveh, what would come to your mind? Most likely you would say Jonah. We have all heard the story about Jonah being swallowed by the great fish and then going to Nineveh to preach against the city. His message was short and to the point, “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown” (Jon 3:4, all Scripture quotes are from the NKJV). The city, from the king to the dogcatcher, repented. Have you ever wondered what happened to Nineveh after that? The short prophetic book of Nahum tells us “the rest of the story.”The Date of the Book of NahumScholars have long debated the date of the book of Nahum. A wide range of dates has been suggested, from the eighth century BC (Feinberg 1951:126, 148) to the Maccabean period, early second century BC (Haupt 1907). Yet, the book gives us internal chronological parameters to date the book. Nahum describes the conquest of Thebes (No-Amon) by Ashurbanipal II in 663 BC as a past event, thus the book could not have been written before that date. The entire book is a prediction of the fall of the city of Nineveh in 612 BC. Thus, the book was written somewhere between 663 and 612 BC.A case can be made for the proclamation of the message, and writing of the book, about 650 BC. If this is the correct date, the Spirit of God used this book to put King Manasseh into a position where he could come to faith and bring Judah back to the LORD. Up until this point in the reign of King Manasseh, the kingdom, led by the king, was “more evil than the nations whom the LORD had destroyed before the children of Israel” (2 Chr 33:9). The LORD sent seers (prophets) to speak to the nation, but the nation would not listen to the Word of God (33:10, 18). While not named, one of the seers was probably Nahum. His vision concerning the total destruction of Nineveh would be seen by the Assyrian overlords as fomenting rebellion and insurrection, and possibly seen as support for Shamash-shum-ukin, the king of Babylon, in his current civil war with his brother Ashurbanipal II. If a copy of the book of Nahum fell into the hands of the Assyrian intelligence community stationed at the Assyrian administrative centers of Samaria, Dor, Megiddo or Hazor, King Manasseh would have had to give account for this book. The Biblical record states,the LORD brought upon them [Judah] the captains of the army of the king of Assyria, who took Manasseh with hooks, bound him with bronze fetters, and carried him off to Babylon (2 Chr 33:11).Relief of Elamites being tortured during the time of Ashurbanipal. From the palace of Sennacherib at Nineveh, now in the British Museum. The two Elamites shown on this portion of the relief are being skinned alive.This event would have transpired in 648 BC, the year that Ashurbanipal II temporarily ruled Babylon after he eliminated his brother as a result of the four-year civil war (Rainey 1993:160).Dragging someone off with hooks in their nose would be in keeping with Ashurbanipal’s character. In the excavations of Sam’al (Zincirli, in southern Turkey) a stela was found depicting Esarhaddon holding two leashes attached to the nose-rings of Baal of Tyre and Usanahuru, a crown prince of Egypt (see front cover). Flanking the stela, watching intently, is Esarhaddon’s son Ashurbanipal on the left and his brother Samas-sumu-ukin on the right. Ashurbanipal observed his father’s brutality and followed his example (Parpola and Watanabe 1988:20, 21).During Manasseh’s interrogation by Ashurbanipal II (and it must have been a brutal one—the text used the word “afflicted”).He implored the LORD his God, and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers, and prayed to Him; and He received his entreaty, heard his supplication, and brought him back to Jerusalem into his kingdom. Then Manasseh knew that the LORD was God (2 Chr 33:12&ndashRosetta Stone Japanese

Nimrod as a mighty hunter founded a powerful kingdom; and the founding of this kingdom is shown by the verb with consecutive to have been the conseque

f grace (loc. cit.).After the Flood there was, at some point, a break-away from YHWH. Only eight people descended from the Ark. Those people worshipped YHWH. But at some point an influential person became opposed to YHWH and gathered others to his side. I suggest that Nimrod is the one who did it. Cain had done similarly before the Flood, founding a new city and religious system.Our English translation of the Hebrew of Genesis 10:8-10 is weak. The author of this passage of Scripture will not call Gilgamesh by his name and honor him, but is going to call him by a derisive name, what he really is­a rebel. Therefore we should translate Genesis 10:8-10 to read: Cush begat Nimrod; he began to be a tyrant in the earth. He was a tyrannical hunter in opposition to the Lord. Thus it is said. ‘Nimrod the tyrannical opponent of YHWH.’Likewise, Gilgamesh was a man who took control by his own strength. In Genesis 10 Nimrod is presented as a type of him. Nimrod’s descendents were the ones who began building the tower in Babel where the tongues were changed. Gilgamesh is a type of early city founders. (Page numbers are from Heidel 1963)He is a “shepherd” .............. page 18From Uruk ............................. page 17 (Kramer 1959: 31 calls Uruk Erech.)A giant .................................... page 17 (11 cubits)Builds cities .......................... page 17Vile man “takes women” .... page 18Mighty hunter ......................... page 18Nimrod started his kingdom at Babylon (Gn 10:10). Babylon later reached its zenith under Nebuchadnezzar (sixth century BC). Pictured are mudbrick ruins of Nebuchadnezzar’s city along with ancient wall lines and canals.Gilgamesh Confronts YHWH The name of YHWH rarely appears in extra-Biblical literature in the Ancient Near East. Therefore we would not expect to find it in the Gilgamesh epic. But why should the God of the Jews rarely be mentioned? The Hebrew Bible is replete with the names of other gods.On the other hand, the nations surely knew of Him even though they had no respect for Him. If so, how might His Name appear in their literature, if at all? The name of YHWH, in a culture which is in rebellion against His rule, would most likely be in a derisive form, not in its true form. Likewise, the writers of Scripture would deride the rebels.Originally established by Nimrod (Gn 10:11), and today known as Nimrud, Calah became an important city in Iraq. This is an artist’s reconstruction of the interior of Tiglath-pileser III’s palace (late seventh century BC).Putting the Bible and the Gilgamesh Epic Together The Gilgamesh Epic describes the first “God is dead” movement. In the Epic, the hero is a vile, filthy, perverted person, yet he is presented as the greatest, strongest, hero that ever lived (Heidel 1963: 18). So that the one who sent the Flood wilt not trouble them anymore, Gilgamesh sets out to kill the perpetrator. He takes with him a friend who is a monstrous half-man, half-animal­Enkidu. Together they go on a long journey to the Cedar Mountain to find and destroy the monster who sent the Flood. Gilgamesh finds him and finally succeeds in cutting off the head of this creature whose name is “Huwawa” (“Humbaba” in the Assyrian version; see Heidel 1963: 34ff).Is there a connection with the Gilgamesh epic and Genesis 10? Note what Gilgamesh says to Enkidu the half man, half beast, who accompanied him on his journey, found in Tablet III, lines 147-150. “If I fall,” Gilgamesh says, “I will establish a name for myself. Gilgamesh is fallen, they will say, in combat with terrible Huwawa.”But the next five lines are missing from all tablets found so far! Can we speculate on what they say? Let’s try...We suggest that those five lines include: “But if I win,...they will say, Gilgamesh, the mighty vanquisher of Huwawa!” Why do we say that? Because Genesis 10:9 gives us the portion missing from the Gilgamesh tablets. Those lines include... “it is said, Nimrod (or Gilgamesh) the mighty vanquisher of YHWH” This has to be what is missing from all the clay tablets of the Gilgamesh story. The Gilgamesh Epic calls him Huwawa; the Bible calls Him YHWH.Part of Nimrod’s kingdom (Gn 10:11), Nineveh along the Tigris River continued to be a major city in ancient Assyria. Today adjacent to modern Mosul, the ruins of ancient Nineveh are centered on two mounds, the acropolis at Kuyunjik and Nebi Yunis (Arabic “Prophet Jonah”). Pictured is Sennacherib’s “palace without rival” on Kuyunjik, constructed at the end of the seventh century BC and excavated by Henry Layard in the early 20th century.Heidel, speaking of the incident as it is found on Tablet V says: All we can conclude from them [the lost lines] is that Gilgamesh and Enkidu cut off the head of Humbaba (or Huwawa) and that the expedition had a successful issue [ending] (1963: 47).The missing lines from the Epic are right there in the Bible!Because of the parallels between Gilgamesh and Nimrod, many scholars agree that Gilgamesh is Nimrod. Continuing with Gilgamesh’s fable, he did win, he did vanquish Huwawa and took his head. Therefore he could come back to Uruk and other cities and tell the people not to worry about YHWH anymore, he is dead. ‘“I killed him over in the Lebanon mountains. So just live however you like, I will be your king and take care of you.”Often attributed to Nimrod, the Tower of Babel (Gn 11:1-9) was not a Jack and the Beanstalk-type of construction, where people were trying to build a structure to get into heaven. Instead it is best understood as an ancient ziggurat (Assyrian “mountaintop”), as the one pictured at ancient Ur of the Chaldees, Abraham’s hometown (Gn 11:31). A ziggurat was a man-made structure with a temple at its top, built to worship the host of heaven.There are still other parallels between the Bible and the Gilgamesh epic: “YaHWeH” has a somewhat similar sound to “Huwawa.” Gilgamesh did just as the “sons of god” in Genesis 6 did. The “sons of god” forcibly took men’s wives. The Epic says that is precisely what Gilgamesh did. The Bible calls Nimrod a tyrant, and Gilgamesh was a tyrant. There was a flood in the Bible, there is a flood in the Epic. Cush is mentioned in the Bible, Kish in the Epic. Erech is mentioned in Scripture, Uruk was Gilgamesh’s city. Gilgamesh made a trip to see the survivor of the Flood. This was more likely Ham than Noah, since “Nimrod” was Ham’s grandson! Historically. Gilgamesh was of the first dynasty of Uruk. As Jacobsen points out (1939: 157), kings before Gilgamesh may be fictional, but not likely. The fact that the Gilgamesh epic also contains the Deluge story would indicate a close link with events immediately following the Flood, S.N. Kramer says: A few years ago one would have strongly doubted his (historical) existence...we now have the certitude that the time of Gilgamesh corresponds to the earliest period of Mesopotamian history. (Kramer 1959: 117)What a contrast Psalm 2 is compared with the Gilgamesh Epic!



The Dating of Hazor's Destruction in Joshua 11 Via Biblical, Archaeological, and Epigraphical Evidence
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