Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Hedrick Gary <GaryH AT cjfm.org>]

Ancient rulers, perhaps most notably the Egyptian pharaohs, had a tendency to 
try to erase earlier rulers—particularly ones they didn't like—from the 
collective national memory. (For instance, we may never have known about 
Akhenaten if it weren't for the discovery of Amarna in the 1800s.) It is not 
inconceivable that the successors of Darius did the same thing. 

But again, as Karl and others have pointed out, this is all speculation. It 
would take one heck of an archaeological find to prove it.

Gary Hedrick
San Antonio, Texas USA

On Apr 19, 2010, at 1:24 PM, K Randolph wrote:

> Ron:
> 
> There are two main problems I see in identifying Darius the Mede:
> 
> 1) the destruction of Persian records by Alexander the Great, so that all we
> have left are the Bible and a few scattered records from other sources,
> 
> 2) I suspect Cyrus the Great as having tried to erase records of Darius the
> Mede to justify his rule over his erstwhile ally, or more accurately he may
> have been a top general under Darius and now he wanted to justify his taking
> over Darius’ kingdom.
> 
> We may never know what actually happened.
> 
> Karl W. Randolph.
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