Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Jonathan D. Safren" <yonsaf AT beitberl.ac.il>]

Walter Mattfeld wrote:

> Dear Jonathan,
>
> I suspect you are still sceptical of the idea that Madai in Genesis Table of
> Nations is alluding to the Persians, as argued by myself in previous posts.
> I want to share with you the observations of widely respected scholar,
> J.Simons, who, in his day, wrote extensively on biblical geography and the
> identities of the Nations in Genesis 10.

[JSafren] The fact that he was a great scholar doen's mean he couldn't have 
made
a mistake. Many do.

>
> J. Simons, in an article dated 1954, argued that Madai in Genesis 10 was the
> Persians ! See below for an excerpt of his important observations:
>
> "The name referred to is that of the Madai. IT IS OF SOME IMPORTANCE TO NOTE
> THAT THIS NAME STANDS FOR THE PERSIANS RATHER THAN THE MEDES PROPER. A
> specific mention of the Medes with the consequent exclusion of the Persians,
> founder of a great empire after the Assyrians and Babylonians, would be a
> matter for surprise.

[J Safren] Why would it be a surprise if the Persian Empire hadn't come on the
scene of history yet?
The Esarhaddon Vassal Treaty, dating from 683 BCE is with kinglets of kingdoms
located in what would afterwards be Persia, yet it fdoesn't mention Persia at
all. Napopolassar was aided by Media (I think it was Cyaxares but I don't
remember; I read the documents so long ago) in his war against the last king 
of
Assyria, in the last decades of the 7th century; Peresia isn't mentioned at 
all

> Moreover, it is well known that contemporary authors,
> such as Herodotus and Thucydides, refer to the Persians by the name of
> Medes, and that the same practice occurs, though more incidentally, in the
> Old Testament itself (Isa. 13:17; 21:2; Jer. 51:11, 28; elsewhere 'Medes and
> Persians' form a single unit:

The dating of the passages in Isa. is controversial; but the majority of
opinions I have seen date it to before the rise of Persia. If the passage in
Jeremiah is Jeremianic - as it seems to be, for he calls Media the "nation 
from
the North"' in line with his developing ideas about this nation) - then it is 
to
be dated well before the rise of Persia, for Jeremiah was by this time - after
the destruction of the Temple - very old.

> Esther 1:3, inter alia; cp. also Daniel 8:20:
> the ram with two horns).

Esther and Daniel are both very late books - Daniel is demonstrably from the
Hellenistic Period, and probably Esther as well. At the earliest, if we accept
what's qwritten there, it's from the time of Xerxes.
Why shouldn't they mention both Persia and Media?

> Now, if the Madai of the Table of Nations really
> refer to the Persian Empire,

Again, you (and Simons) haven't proved that.
The Table of Nations also mentions Ashkenaz, the A$.GU.ZA, or Scythians, of 
the
cuneiform texts, who appeared towards the end of the 7th century BCE.

>
> In November of 1997 I first shared my discovery with the schoarly world on
> the ANE discusssion list hosted by the University of Chicago, that Greek
> genealogies made the Medes descendants of Iapetos (Japheth) as preserved in
> Herodotus, Strabo and Diodorus Siculus.

[JSafren] Perfectly in line with Gen. 10.

>
> As is obvious from Simons' above observations, he was bewildered as to why
> Medes would be made descendants of Japheth and not of Shem, especially as
> Susa and Persepolis had lain at one time within the confines of ancient Elam
> (Elam being a descendant of Shem). Evidently, the genealogical connection
> preserved by the Greek authors, eluded him and others.

{JSafren] That's because the Medes are Medes, and not Elamites or Persians. 
The
descendants of Japheht are al located to the North (including NE and NW) of
Israel.

>
> If I am correct in my assertion that the Jews at the Persian court picked up
> the notion that the Medes were descendants of the Greeks due to Darius I's
> Median General, Datis, making just such a claim in 490 BCE, then Genesis, as
> we have it, is a 5th century BCE creation.

[JSafren] Where does it say in the Bible that the Medes are the descendants of
the Greeks? In Gen. 10, the brothers of Media are Gomer (Cimmeria), Magog
(perhaps MAT. Gugu, "the land of Gyges", i.e., Lydia), Yawan (Ionia - the 
Greeks
of the Western coast of Asia Minor), Meshekh (Mu$ku), etc. So, the Greeks can 
be
understood to be the "brpthers" of the Medes.

Yours,
Jonathan
--
Jonathan D. Safren
Dept. of Biblical Studies
Beit Berl College
44905 Beit Berl Post Office
Israel