Thyatira, Daughter of Jezebel

I have a complicated relationship with the Seven Church Ages view of Revelation 2-3.  What I've been doing lately is trying to develop my own modified form of it, that's almsot more of a genealogy then a Timeline, but also it's fluidity allows the eras to overlap.  But I still consider any such view less important then the idea that at any time there are some Churches that fit all of these descriptions.

When I was most hostile to the idea I emphasized it as tied to a Western Bias in looking at Church History.  And Thyatira being both the Roman Catholic and Medieval Church was vital to how I painted it that way  But as a student of History I should have known better.  The Catholic Church did impact the lands of The Bible during the Middle Ages, and that impact is still felt today.

One aspect of that is the Maronite Church which claims to have always been in Communion with Rome and is still the dominant form of Christianity in Lebanon.

However The Crusades are the bigger deal.  Catholic Kingdoms ruled Jerusalem for nearly a Century and places like Cyprus, Acre and Antioch for longer.  Then the Fourth Crusade had Latins take over much of the Eastern Empire's territory.  The Cities of the Seven Churches themselves always remained part of the Greek Empire of Nicaea, but the Catholic Empire was near by.  And then the Knights Hospiltars' rule of Rhodes gave them presence in the Eastern Mediterranean till after The Reformation started.

And since then the Maronites have become no longer the only Eastern Rite Catholic Church.  The Melkite Greek Catholics are the majority of Christians in Modern Israel, and the Chaldean Catholic Church are the Majority of Christians in Iraq, something that should perhaps be considered more often in the Mystery Babylon and Papal Antichrist debates.

Protestants seeing Catholicism in this message tend to overlook the good things that are said about them.  And indeed the good things said about Thyatira are the good things that can be said about Catholics even today.  Maybe not the Church Hierarchy as an institution, but many individual Catholics and local Parishes do take seriously the Church's mandate to give to the poor and care for the sick better then most Protestants, especially in the modern U.S. who've gotten wrapped up in that Prosperity nonsense.

This Church getting the longest message is often used to justify it getting the longest time period in the Seven Ages view.  While it has the longest message it's not half the total.  The modified version I'm considering would begin the Thyatira era with Pope Gregory I and ends Pergamos's primacy with the Seventh Ecumenical Council in 787 and then begin Sardis with the preaching of John Ball and John Wycliff in the 1370s and ends Thyatira primacy with the death of Mary Queen of Scots.  So it still has more of the timeline then anyone else.

It is the figure of Jezebel in the message who is the most enigmatic.  With even speculation on the original 1st-2nd century local context being unsure what to make of her.  Later Church history doesn't seem to associate any female Prophets false or otherwise with this city, the Montanists claimed their prophetic lineage from Philadelphia.  Scholars even disagree on if the intent is to reference the Old Testament personage or if this was an individual literally named Jezebel.

The Anti-Paul cultists out there have from time to time thrown out the idea that this Jezebel is Lydia of Thyatira from Acts 16.  There is no real evidence of that besides she's a woman linked to both this location and Paul and these people are determined to believe all the bad things said in these 2 chapters are directed at Paulian Christianity. 

The association of this message with Protestant criticisms of Catholicism has often resulted in this Jezebel being associated with The Catholic view of Mary, sometimes specifically that this is referring to a Demonic Entity that is behind those Marian Apparitions.  However I feel Jesus is definitely referring to a flesh and blood female Human claiming the office of Prophet.  But eschatologically it could be applicable to multiple false Prophets who've filled this role over the ages.

Perhaps my most controversial Hot Take on the applicability of this prophecy is that maybe if Thyatira is Catholicism then Jezebel is Jeanne d'Arc? (Joan of Arc for uninformed Anglophones, I only got used to the proper pronunciation because of all the Anime she pops up in.)

I get annoyed every time Protestants try to claim her as some kind of Proto-Protestant (including one website I read on the Historicist view of Thyatira), she actually called for a Crusade agaisnt the Hussites, the actual Proto-Protestants of 15th Century Europe. She was in fact both religiously and politically conservative and even reactionary.  In fact I don't think any woman living in 15th century Europe would be more hostile to modern Feminism.  And again I don't think any of the talk of "Fornication" in this chapter or 17-18 is actually about Sex, the Greek word is a word for prostitution but in my view is here about spiritual whoredom, i.e. Idolatry.  Catholic Idolatry was something Jeanne promoted in claiming specifically Catholic Saints talked to her in her visions.

But that is by no means my only or even main theory.

I think the reason people are confused by the name dropping of Jezebel is because we don't properly think of Old Testament Jezebel as someone claiming to be a Prophetess.  But the role of Prophet Biblically is not just about giving predictive Prophecies or even for claiming to have directly communicated with God, it's being a forth teller of God's word.  And there are in that case two types of false Prophets, those who attribute false words to the True God, and those who promote false gods.  Jezebel was the chief False Prophet of her era because she was leading the propagation of Baal Worship.  

The Prophetess of Isaiah 8 was in my opinion probably the wife of Uzziah and mother of Hezekiah.  And while Biblically the word Prophetess is never used of her Jewish tradition does call David's Wife Abigail a Prophetess because she did Prophesy.  That's two precedents for a Prophetess of YHWH being a Queen-Consort of the House of David, so the Queen-Consort of Ahab being his False Prophetess rhymes quite nicely.

My reading of Jezebel does have a bit in common with what I said of Jeanne d'Arc above.  Even though she was a woman who held power, she and her daughter Athaliah I see as conservative women driven by a lot of internalized misogyny.  So I am a bit annoyed that a certain famous Feminist website has named itself after her.  I get it, they don't want to give The Bible the benefit of the doubt on Gender issues so see it as empowering to embrace a Biblical Villainess.  But I do believe The Bible's historical narrative allows more nuance then people realize, that some Heroes aren't Lionized as unconditionally as we assume, and that some villains it is okay to emphasize or sympathize with.  Jezebel and Athaliah are simply the worst to claim as Feminist icons, Delilah I actually like but what most people assume about her is also off.  Even Athaliah would be better since she was a Queen-Regent and not another example of the trope of a woman wielding power because of who she's screwing or is related to, she even tried to massacre her own grandchildren to be rid of that pretense.

Back to Revelation chapter 2.  Since the name itself is a point of contention, I decided to look at the Greek text.  The Greek spelling is Iezabel.  That spelling makes perfect sense to me as a Greek transliteration of the Hebrew Iyzebel.  But I'm also struck by how much it resembles the Romance Language European names Isabel/Isabella and other variants.

The Wikipedia page for the name Isabel/Isabella says they are forms of Elizabeth.  But that seems utterly ridiculous to me.  As if Catholic Europe doesn't want to admit how often they've been unwittingly naming their daughters after one of The Bible's notorious villains.

The most famous Isabella is Isabelle of Aragon the first Queen of Spain, who the Catholic Church does highly revere, giving her the title "The Catholic".  She hasn't been made a Saint yet, but remember Jeanne wasn't canonized till the 20th Century, it can take awhile.  She died just before the Reformation but among her children and grandchildren were the fiercest Catholic political opponents of the Reformation, they include two Holy Roman Emperors and Bloody Mary.

However since I earlier defined this era as tied to the Seventh Ecumenical Council, perhaps I should look to figures who lived then.  The sin of Jezebel in Revelation 2 is Iconophilia, which prevailed at this council.

Empress Irene was the major political force behind the Council.  What's interesting is how much her biography resembles Athaliah rather then Jezebel.  She was first a Queen-Consort, then Queen-Mother and then Queen-Regent, and was in the end overthrown by a Coup.  But I suppose the only part that doesn't also apply to Jezebel is being an actual ruling Queen.

Update February 18th 2023:

I've argued earlier on this blog for Revelation being written during the reign of Hadrian.  And it has now occurred to me that perhaps many Jews and Christians during that era saw Empress Pompeia Plotina, as a Jezebel figure.  She was the wife of Trajan and by adoption Mother of Hadrian, she's the only Roman empress known to have been also deified in Egypt, and in Rome she was associated with Virgin Goddesses like Vesta and Minerva.  She held the title of Augusta and there are coins depicting her, she lived until at least 121 AD so a few years into the reign of Hadrian, and she was deified in Rome after her death.

Update March 5th 2023: 

I'm adding this update because I read Fred Harding's The Apocalypse Deception, I wrote a review of the Book on Amazon but it hasn't gone live yet, I find it interesting but have to reject it's main thesis which is that The Revelation is a Satanic False Prophecy.  But it's relevant here because there is a whole sub chapter on Thyatira.

First I did mention above that some people read the text as saying this Woman was literally named Jezebel, however I always considered that unlikely and had pretty much ruled it out before I bought this book.  But Harding is presuming there is no other reading in order to make Revelation seem nonsensical and ridiculous.  This chapter of Revelation already established that Hebrew Bible names will come up symbolically.

The teachings of Jezebel are basically the same as what's called the Doctrine of Balaam in the message to Pergamos.  But why use a different Biblical villain here when the text reused the name of Nicolaitans for a different doctrine?  It's because of the different context, Pergamos was a center of the Imperial Cult so the imagery of Idolatrous Adultery with a Foreign Pagan King was mot potent there.  In Thyatira the source of the Corruption is seemingly more internal, and the very name of Thyatira makes using a female symbolic figure who was a daughter of a Canaanite King poetically fitting.

Harding as a Hyper-Paulian asks why Jesus didn't just tell them to excommunicate this Jezebel, at which point I get confused because the entire Jezebel part of the message begins with Jesus saying "Notwithstanding I have a few things against thee, because thou sufferest that woman Jezebel", I really don't know what he thinks that sentence is saying other then "You need to excommunicate her".

He also claims there is no other evidence there ever was a Christian Community in Thyatira in the Pre-Nicene era, but claims this only of Thyatira of these seven which I find odd.  Four of these cities are never explicitly mentioned (at least by this same name) elsewhere in The New Testament, Smyrna, Pergamos, Sardis and Philadelphia.  Thyatira is missing from Polycrates letter on the Quartodeciman controversy but so are Pergamos and Philadelphia.  As far as the lack of a documented line of Bishops, I think all of these traditional lines from Eusebius are exaggerated because he wanted to push Episcopal polity further back into history then it actually existed, Thyatira may have not had it precisely because it was the most Paulian and Paul intended Church government to be Congregational with Presbyterian characteristics, Episcopal Polity came from the Heretic Igantius.  But the Traditional identification for Philadelphia doesn't have any known Bishops prior to the time of Constantine either.

Acts absolutely does depict Paul as visiting the general area of where Thyatira is but without naming specific cities on his third journey, and a native of Thyatira living in Philipi was converted previously.  It's highly unlikely a Paulian community wasn't established here.  Revelation 2 predicts Great Tribulation to fall on Jezebel and her followers in the near future, maybe those of the Thyatira Church who survived that simply moved elsewhere.

Also Lydia was a Merchant, that job required traveling, and we know independent of Acts 16 that Thyatira was important to the Trade of Purple during this period.  So it doesn't mater that we're never explicitly told she had ever traveled back to her hometown, her job basically required her to do so regularly.  

The Wikipedia page for Thyatira (titular see) mentions a second century Bishop named Carpus.  And there was also a Bishop representing Thyatira at Nicaea I, Chalcedon and Nicaea II the Ionophilic Council.

By the Third Century the city was a stronghold of the Montanist sect (my source on that being Epiphaninius Adv Haer LI 33) which did involve prominent Prophetesses.  Montanus was also said to have began his ministry in an unidentified town of Mysia, Thyatira I'd referred to above as Lydian but it was also arguably part of Mysia, sometimes placed right on the border between them. Maybe Montanus's claim to Prophetic succession from Amia of Philadelphia was a lie to obscure actually inheriting his prophetic lineage from the false prophetess of Thyatira?  On the other hand the Montanists seem opposite to what Jezebel was teaching since they were proto-Donatists opposing letting the Lapsi back into the Church while "Jezebel" was basically saying it's okay to Lapse. Maybe they were a movement formed after the time of this "Jezebel" as a reaction going in many ways in the opposite direction?  And of course people who like the Montanists could consider seeing them as those praised in the Message for not following Jezebel.

Speaking of the very concept of Prophetesses, Harding also in this part of the book engages in the typical Patriarchal abuse of 1 Timothy 2:12 which I've addressed in multiple posts on my other blog, Neither Male of Female and it's follow up, Women Pastors, ect and may address further in the future.  But it's also amusing that's he's willing to engage in this criticism of the established Canon, including breaking down stylistic reasons Revelation can't share an author with the other books attributed to an author named John, but then builds so much of this argument on the most disputed Epistle of Paul.

I intend to make a future post on broader claims of incompatibility between Paul and Revelation in the future, I'll maybe say more on Harding then.

I do want to elaborate on why Thyatira has it's name.  The city existed before Seleucus I Nicator but in 290 BC he renamed it to celebrate learning his wife had given birth to a Daughter.  Seleucus was the successor of Alexander who initially specifically inherited just Babylonia, he conquered everything else from there.  Meanwhile one of the names Thyatira is said to have had before this is Semiramis the Greek form of the name of an Assyrian Queen who Greek legendary histography exaggerated into being the founder of Babylon. Five verses of the Hebrew Bible refer to a "Daughter of Babylon", Psalm 137:8, Isaiah 47:1, Jeremiah 50:42, 51:33 and Zechariah 2:7.  Some imagery of the discussion of Jezebel is repeated when discussing Mystery Babylon in chapter 17.  So there could be a Poetic connection there.

Thyatira also may have been a city that was already Greek before the time of Alexander, I'm not sure if that means anything, but like Pergamon and Smyrna it would have been specifically an Aeolian colony. 

It's also interesting that today Thyatira has a Catholic Titular See not a Greek Orthodox one when in general this is an historically Orthodox region.  

The Lost Tribes are the Kurds, Maronites and Armenians

I have decided to abandon my past flirtations with more epic and sexy theories about the Lost Tribes and simply focus on who makes the most sense based on the DNA evidence.

A lot of the discussion of Jewish DNA online has been in the context of refuting the Khazzar Conspiracy theory, Casual Historian and Chris White both have good YouTube videos on that subject.  Studies of the DNA of various Jewish communities have shown them to be genetically closer related to other Jewish communities who might look different from them "Racially" then they are the Gentiles who do look like them "Racially".  And have likewise shown them to be closely related to the Arabs.  This applies equally to the Ashkenazim, Sephardi, Mizrahi, Maghrebi, Temani and other Middle Eastern Jewish communities, as well as the Persian Jews, Georgian Jews, Mountain Jews, Igbo Jews the Lemba and others.

What interests me today however are a handful of Gentile communities that are observed to be Genetically closer related to the Jews even then the Arabs.  Since the Arabs are predominantly the descendants of Ishmael and Abraham's sons by Keturah, groups closer to the Jews then them must be either Edomites or fellow Israelites, but I think the Edomites were mostly absorbed into Ishmaelite populations when the Nabateans conquered ancient Edom.

Those groups are the Kurds, Armenians and the Lebanese Christians.  

Sometimes Georgians and Anatolian Truks are added, but both those groups are today closely related to Armenians because probably many of them have Armenian ancestors somewhere within the last 2,000 years.  Ancient/Medieval Armenia was larger then modern Armenia and in fact included a good chunk of western Turkey, and during the Crusades era there was an Armenian splinter state in Cilicia.  Georgia's relationship to Armenia is uniquely complicated, they for a long time had a royal family that was a cadet branch of Armenia's Bagratid Dynasty.

Armenians actually classified as such are a smaller group today then they used to be largely because of the Armenian Genocide committed by the Young Turks during WWI. 

I should note the fact that some of those Khazzar theorists out there will try to claim the genetic similarities Jews have to Armenians and Georgians is evidence for the Khazzar theory, however legitimate scientists know that doesn't work.  They are on the wrong side of the Caucasus, the core of the Khazzar kingdom was way north of the Caucasus and then when it expanded it at it's greatest extent touched the norther slopes of the Caucasus, but they never held any dominion over Georgia much less Armenia.  Also the Khazzars were a Turkic tribe, so like the other Altaic peoples their dominant Y Haplogroup would have been C which just so happens to be one that has never been found in a Jewish population, even as a tiny minority.

The Anatolian Turks however are genetically speaking not actual Turks, that's what all the discussion of studies of their DNA I've found show even when they don't bring up this relation to Jews.  They are people who started speaking the Turkish Language after the Seljuks and Ottomans conquered the region, but they still more genealogically descend from those who were already there, the people of the Eastern Roman Empire.

Samaria=Kurds

1 Chronicles 5:26 refers to the Trans-Jordan Tribes being carried away by Assyria to Halah, Habor and Hara by the River Gozan.  2 Kings 17:6 and 18:11 also refer to those locations minus Hara but adds "Cities of the Medes" (some have argued it originally read "Mountains of Media", still implies the same general area) as being where the Captives of Samaria under King Hosea were taken.  Then 2 Kings 19:12 and Isaiah 37:12 mentions Gozan and Haran as among nations Assyria had destroyed previously.  From studying similar words in the Hebrew texts I think Hara is a shortened form of Haran, so it's like they're going full circle and being taken back to where Abraham was before he was called.

The River called Gozan in those verses is most likely the Khabur a significant tributary of the Euphrates that has tributaries of it's own, Guzana/Gozan is the name of an ancient city on that river who's remains are now called Tell Halaf, it may be a translation or scribal issue that switched the name of the river and city, or maybe they just were more interchangeable in Antiquity.  Edessa and Nisibis are both cities on rivers that are tributaries of this river as are many other important cities of Syrian and Turkish Kurdistan.  Antiochus Epiphanes renamed Edessa/Urfa as Callirrhoe or Antiochia on the Callirhoe, I'm not sure what exactly Callirhoe refers to here, but it could come from Halah given how Harran is similarly called Carrhae in Greek. 

Ancient Media meanwhile overlaps with modern Iranian Kurdistan, and the Kurdish Language is classified as a Northwestern Iranian language closely related to the Median Language (as are the Zaza-Gorani Languages spoken by some Kurds).  During classical Greco-Roman times this region included Corduene/Gordyene, Media Atropatene and Osroene, it's complicated however because multiple ethnic groups existed in those regions.

These were all territories at least partly under Assyrian Control in 740-720 BC, the more fanciful identifications for these places like Velikvosky's theories and those of British Israelism have Assyria somehow deporting Israelites to places Assyria never controlled.

The passages including Naphtali in the Captivity don't specifically refer to these locations,  But the Deuterocanonical book of Tobit gives us good reason to believe Naphtalite clans were actually living in the heart of Assyria itself (I know that the main protagonists of Tobit are in Media, but it established Ahkir an important Vizer of Assyria as their cousin), and 2 Kings 17:23 also refers to captives being taken to Assyria.  So I think they are the ancestors of first century Adiabene who's capital was Arbela and through them the Kurds of Iraqi Kurdistan who's chief city is Irbil.  

Corduene/Gordyene was inhabited by a people called the Carduchoi/Carduchi who are also popularly proposed to be ancestors of the Kurds.  There is a medieval Jewish legend that the Corduene were the result of Solomon marring some of his Jinn to 500 Jewish Women.  That is a weird legend which is certainly not correct, but it does show that ancient Jews thought of these people as in some way related to them.  It could partly have it's roots in 1 Kings 4's account of Solomon marrying two of his daughters to Northern Governors, one of them being governor of Naphtali.

A region in Media Atropatene called Cadusia may have also been named after Gad.  A city in northwestern Iran is called Zabad, possibly related to the Zabad of 1 Chronicles 7's Ephraimite Genealogy.  There is also a city in Iranian Kurdistan called Salmas who's name could be related to the Biblical name Salma or to Shillem a clan of Naphtali from Number 26:49 and Genesis 46:24.  Salmas first appears in the historical record right at the same time the Parthian Empire was conquered by the Sassanids.

The proper Kingdom of Media of classical antiquity didn't actually begin till just after when the Northern Kingdom of Israel was conquered.  Deioces is the name given in Classical sources for it's first King, there are conflicting dates for their reign between the different sources, but when analyzed they can be explained by Deioces being a Median name given to King Hosea.  Deioces is also speculated to be the same person as Hushung in the Sahanameh, Hushung is a name that both phonetically and in meaning could be a poetic adaptation of the name of Hosea.  So Media Atropatene could be the Arsareth that II Esdras says King Hosea lead some of the exiles to.

Dejoces is a direct ancestor of Astyages who's daughter was the mother of Cyrus.  Media Atropatene was the one former Persian territory not fully conquered by the Greeks under Alexander, it remained Semii-Independent till the 1st century when their Royal Family became the main Parthian Royal Family and through them of Armenia as well.

Saladin was of Kurdish ancestry.

The rest of the Northern Kingdom was not carried away into captivity.  Those who accepted Hezekiah's Passover invitation in 2 Chronicles simply became Jews (citizens of Judah/Judea), and is known to have included people of Manasseh, Issachar, Zebulun and Asher. (Anna the Prophetess of Luke 2 was of the Tribe of Asher.)  For the most part though in NT times they became the Galileans and Jews of southern Phoenicia. Those of Manasseh and Ephraim who rejected Hezekiah' invitation became partial ancestors of the Samaritans by mingling with the gentiles Assyria settled there.  And the Tribe of Dan's unique History had them mostly separated from the rest of the Northern kingdom well before the captivity happened.

Actually even Assyria's deportation of Naphtali seems to have been the core Natphalite settlements along the Sea of Galilee, while Naphtali's allotment included much of Eastern Lebanon, where there were places they never drove the Canaanites out of.

Dan=Maronites

Most Christians in Lebanon are Maronites, the Maronites are also seemingly the oldest Christian community in Lebanon.  

Among the parts of Lebanon demographically dominated by the Maronites are places on the southern Border just north of Israel's Northern Border.  And the oldest Maronite Community within Israel was in a village north of Mount Meron just south of the Lebanese border.  Thus fitting Dan's Biblical association with Israel's northern border.  

Lebanon is the region that in Biblical Times was the homeland of the Sidonians known to the Greeks as the Phoenicians who's chief cities were first Sidon then Tyre.  The Tribe of Dan had a unique relationship with the Sidonians and their territory from Joshua 19 to Judges 18 to Hiram architect of Solomon's Temple.  

The last time I talked about this theory of mine I tied it into rejecting Tel-Dan as being Biblical Dan, but that I've changed my mind on.  I now know that we've found the ruins of an old Temple at Tel-Dan likely to be where Jeroboam's Calf was worshiped.  There used to be a more significant Maronite presence in the Golan Heights but now they've dwindled to just a small community in Ein Qiniyye not far from Tel-Dan.  [My opinions continue to fluctuate on that subject.  But now even the more Northern sites I'm considering are also in Maronite territory.]

In the KJV of 1 Kings 5:18 "stonequarers" is a translation of Giblites, which is the spelling also used of inhabitants of Gebel the Semitic name for Byblos, the YLT translates this verse correctly.  Since these Giblites are implied to be involved in the construction of The Temple which was overseen by the half-Danite half-Phoenician Huram, I'm willing to consider this circumstantial evidence for significant Danite presence in the region of Byblos, which is today the core of Maronite Lebanon.  Gebel/Byblos was also a port city, so the seafaring Danites mentioned in the Song of Deborah might be who settled there.

There is a tradition among some Maronites that they at least partly descend from the Maradites, a group of Byzantine Christians who migrated from the Taurus Mountains region of Turkey into Syria during the 7th Century.  Of course there are also theories about the Tribe of Dan that suggest some of them wound up in the Adana region as the Denyen.

But I am also skeptical about traditional narrative of Maronite origins.  I think the actual origin of their name is probably connected to Mount Maron in Nothern Israel, a village between that Mountain the Lebanon border was one of the oldest Marontie communities in Israel.  

I also theorize that the liturgically Greek Christians of Tyre, Sidon and Ptolemais/Acre/Acco/Akka clerically at least descend from the Hellenistic Jewish Deacons of Acts 6 who Acts 11 implies some of fled to Phoenicia, and later on Acts mentions all three of those cities specifically.  My broader theory is that the Greek Rite Christian communities of Northern Israel and Southern Lebanon to some extent descend from Hellenized Jews who converted to Christianity in the First Century, there are references to the Galileans being more open to Hellenization then the Judeans.  And related to that I think the Aramaic Rite Christians of the same region distinct from the Maronites likewise descent from Aramaic speaking Jews who converted to Christianity in the First Century.  In this region they were probably usually remnants of Asher, Zebulun and Issachar, and maybe also those Manesseites in Asher and Issachar referred to in Joshua 17:11, Judges 1:27, 1 Kings 4:11-12 and 1 Chronicles 7:29.

The non Maronite Christians of Eastern Lebanon could be those left behind remnants of Naphtali like the Melkite Catholics of Zahle.  There are also Maronites in the East, Dan and Naphtali as brothers of the same handmaiden often got along.

How does Armenia fit in?

During much of the divided Kingdom Period the city of Lachish was the second largest city in Judah, and in fact the largest within Judah's proper Tribal allotment since Jerusalem was originally a city of Benjamin.  Assyria failed to conquer Jerusalem, but in it's war with Judah during the reign of Hezekiah it did capture and carry away into captivity the population of Lachish.

There are no Biblical clues to where the Judeans of Lachish were taken like there are for the Northern Kingdom's Captivity.  However where Assyria settled the northern captives made sense in the context of what their other recent conquests were, Assyria liked to move populations from one conquered region to another to weaken local national identities.  So it's notable that between the Northern Kingdom's captivity in the 8th century BC and when Lachish was taken in the 7th century BC the Assyrian Empire had conquered Urartu extending it's borders further north.  And the Armenians first began to emerge in the former Urartu lands after Assyria conquered it.  It took awhile however, the Orontid Kings don't show up till 570 BC, and nothing is known to have been written down in the Armenian language till their translation of The Bible in the 5th Century AD.

Armenia's traditional claim to descent from sons of Gomer (chiefly Togarmah but Ashkenaz is also mentioned) I think refers to some of the ancestors of the Urartu who lived in the region before them and who they intermingled with.  Or maybe the Armenian Language being Indo-European is their influence.

It's possible additional Jewish migrations to this region happened later, like during the Babylonian Captivity or when it ended.  Two patrilineal descendants of Herod The Great were Roman Client Kings of Armenia as Tigranes V and Tigranes VI.  And then Jewish Christians of the first couple centuries eventually brought The Gospel to Armenia, Armenia even claims to have beaten Rome to making Christianity their State Religion in 301 AD. I think it actually happened a little later probably at the same time as Iberia in the 330s and like them perhaps partly because of diplomatic relations with Constantine. 

Both the Six Pointed Star and a Red Lion are among Armenia's National Symbols.  Many insist the Six Pointed Start didn't become a Jewish Symbol till fairly recently, but archeological evidence does exist of it being used in Ancient Israel, and I have a hypothesis that the Hebrew Bible's Lily Imagery is partly where it comes from.  

It is sometimes claimed that only the Georgian Bagratuni claimed Davidic descent, but their heraldry was a Lion already in Armenia.  There is also an Armenian folk hero named David of Sassoun who's father was called Lion Mher meaning "lion like".  The current official genealogy of the Georgian branch connects them to David in a way that excludes the Armenian branch, but that link alone may not be the whole story.

The Eagle was also an ancient symbol for Armenia.  I've often pointed out how there is no Biblical support for an Eagle being a symbol of Dan, that came from later Targums.  I had in the past mistakenly thought the Eagle imagery of the last verse of Micah 1 was in reference to Samaria, but the proper context is actually Lachish named in verse 13 and nearby towns of Judah.  Micah 1 is a Biblical reference to the Assyrian Captivity of Lachish which I had trouble finding when looking for it strictly in the historical books.

One theory on the claimed Davidic origins of the Bagratid Dynasty I've already discussed on this blog is that they descend from one of the Maternal Half Siblings of Jesus (I'm thinking of making a post arguing that Cleopas was married to a Sister of Jesus).  However other theories on their origins connect them to the Babylonian Exilarchs.  I also am controversially willing to agree with Nicolas of Damascus over Josephus that Herod was of Davidic ancestry not Idumean.

But maybe Lachish itself was simply a frequent home to Cadet branches of the House of David, like Orleans was for France and York for England?  David himself, Rehoboam and Abijah are all known to have had a lot more children then just the Son who followed them on the Throne.

Plato's Myth of Er son of Armenios is probably an adaptation of Armenian legends about their local hero Ara The Beautiful.  That draws attention to the possibility that the Armenian name Ara could be related to the Hebrew Er.  In Genesis 38:3-7, 46:12, Numbers 26:19 and 1 Chronicles 2:3 the name of Er is given to Judah's firstborn son who died childless.  I believe Er's widow Tamar did eventually marry Shelah after the events of Genesis 38 end and that she's the mother Shelah's children (in addition to Zerah and Pharez).  In 1 Chronicles 4:21 the name of Er is given to the firstborn son of Shelah.  

It could be the real story behind the myth was this second Er being thought of as a symbolic rebirth of the first Er.  I don't think Semiramis was ever part of the Ara mythology prior to Hellenistic influence in the region, and Plato we also know would change the myths he talked about to suit his rhetorical purposes.  However if a literal belief in Reincarnation was part of the Pre-Christian Paganism of Armenia, my current theories about the origins of that belief suggests it would have came not from the Jewish element of their ancestry but from the same people responsible for their language being Indo-European.

Perhaps I should give some more thought to Armenia's close relationship to Georgia however.  The oldest civilization in what is today called Georgia was Colchis.  Certain classical Greek writers like Diodorus Siculus (in Section 28) said that the Colchi descended from the same "foreigners exiled from Egypt" that the Jews descended from, and that they also practiced circumcision. "The nation of the Colchi in Pontus and that of the Jews, which lies between Arabia and Syria, were founded as colonies by certain emigrants from their country; and this is the reason why it is a long-established institution among these two peoples to circumcise their male children."  The Georgians were called Iberians during Greco-Roman times, a name which could derive from Eber/Hebrew.  So maybe the Colchi were the lost clan of Calchol son of Zerah son of Judah?  

The Colchi definitely existed on the shores of the Black Sea before the captivity of Lachish however, so we'd need an additional route for how they got there.  They could have just been a colony founded by Judean sea faring merchants.  However Joel 3 speaks of Tyre & Sidon and the Philistines selling children of Judah and Jerusalem to Ionians(Javan) as slaves.  Ezekiel 27:13 speaks of Javan, Meshach and Tubal trading in commodities including Slaves that they got from Tyre.  Meshach and Tubal are the names of two ancient cities in Georgia.  

Herodotus also claimed the Colchi practiced Circumcision though his theory on why was that they were an Egyptian colony.  Modern scholars tend to dismiss these Greek references to Circumcision in Colchis because none of the Karvelian tribes seem to have ever practiced it.  However the Georgian Jews were already present in the region by the time of Nebuchadnezzar, so it could be they were who these Greek authors were thinking of.

Be Flexible.

There is a lot of overlap between Armenia at it's greatest extent and Kurdistan, before the Armenian Genocide there were over 2 Million Armenians in Turkey many of them essentially right next to the Kurdish communities.  The Armenian offshoot Kingdom of Sophene was entirely within modern Kurdistan.  The Armenian Historian Moses of Chorene for some reason considers the history of King Abgar of Edessa to be relevant to the History of Armenia, he talks about him far more then the actual Armenian Client Kings of that time.

So being super rigid about which part of Ancient Israel each is descended from is of course a bit silly.  But I found it fun to talk about the often overlooked subject of Lachish in the context of Armenia.

Gad in Deuteronomy 33 has Lion symbolism parallel to that of Judah in Genesis 49. 

The traditions the Armenians have that they descend from sons of Gomer son of Japheth could have it's roots in there being an ancient major city called Gyumri.  However in Scripture the name of Gomer isn't limited to that genealogy, in Hosea it's also the name of a Woman who's story is supposed to typologically represent the Northern Kingdom.

Update 2022: Anatolian Turks

I kind of dismissed them as one of the DNA results at the start as mostly insignificant.  I didn't really realize that Anatolian Turks are in fact the majority ethnic group in modern Turkey.

In addition to how they might be related through various intermingling they've done with Armenians and Kurds, there is Joel 3's reference to Philista, Tyre and Sidon selling people of Judah and Jerusalem as slaves to the Ionians (commonly translated Greeks or Grecians) Ionia was in Anatolia.  1 Chronicles 9:3 says Jerusalem's population has people of Judah, Benjamin, Ephraim and Manasseh.  I connected Joel 3 to Ezekiel 27's Meshech and Tubal reference in the Georgia section above, but many argue Meshech and Tubal actually point to locations in Anatolia, chiefly Cappadocia and Tyana.

Then there is how some "Sea Peoples" are connected to both Anatolia and Israel, like the Denyen to both Dan and Adana, and the Sherden to both the Sardite clan of Zebulun and Sardis.  To mainstream historians who see a connection it is usually seen as them starting in Anatolia then migrating to Palestine, but I of course think the other way is more likely.  However I still think most of those tribes mostly stayed in Israel and Lebanon as laid out above, it'd be small groups who left little seeds in Anatolia that eventually grew to great significance.

And then there is my theory that the Gog son of Joel a Cheif of The Tribe of Reuben in 1 Chronicles 5 was a child when Reuben was deported in the late 700s BC and is the same person as Gyges of Lydia.

I now have Charles Beke's book on Jabal Baghir being Sinai

Click here to find it on Amazon.

He still placed Kadesh and Paran in the Sinai Peninsula, in fact Paran is what he prefers to call that Peninsula.  I feel I have firmly proven they are Petra, east of Israel's southern border, however this mountain fits Petra as Kadesh quite well regardless of that.

He actually gets into an early version of Mziraim wasn't Egypt speculation, but his take on that isn't as extreme.  He argues Miizraim was a tribe dwelling on the Wadi al Arish the Biblical "River of Egypt", and he identifies them as the Hyksos.  I actually think this may be a reasonable way to reconcile the issues, Mizraim settled there but his 7 named sons lead colonies into Africa.

He also predates Wyatt and Cornuke in arguing for the Biblical Yam Suph referring to specifically the Gulf of Aqaba.

I'm not willing to settle on this theory for Sinai yet.  What compels me to make a post on this is some of the material that surprisingly adds new context to the Petra as the original Mecca speculations.

Beke is informed by local Arabs that Jabal Baghir is also known as Jebel en-Nur or Jebel e-Nur, the Mountain of Light.  And the thing is he doesn't even seem to know that name is more famously the name of a Mountain near Mecca where Jibril first appeared to Muhammad.  He was simply told the Mountain of Light is one of three Mountains visible from Aqaba.

Dan Gibson, the main popularizer of the Petra as the original Mecca theory doesn't identify this mountain with Al-Nour, instead his location for the Cave of Hira is within Petra north of where the major Tombs are.  But I think this mountain being a little further from "Mecca" then it's usually thought to be can work well, it's a place Muhammad traveled to and stayed for a month.

On page 417 Beke concludes that an earlier writer, Burckhardt, had used the name Jebel Shafeh to refer to Jebel Shera, if Jebel Shera is a mountain near Petra, it might be the one Gibson has identified as Safa or it might by Gibson's Marwah.

I wonder if it would be accurate to describe Jebel Bagir as 5 Kilometers from Aqaba?

Dan to Beersheba

Beersheba might seem like an odd Biblical location to question the traditional identification of.  But I really feel the modern Israeli city of Beerhseba is too far north to work for how often Beersheba is an idiom of Israel's southern border.  And maybe it's too far west too, this idiom should perhaps be the middle of the border otherwise it's more of a corner.

Part of the confusion comes from Gerar, I think Biblical Gerar includes the modern traditional location but extents further to cover a descent chunk of the southern Negev.  It's a region not a city.

There are three chapters of The Bible that define the Southern Border without reference to Beersheba or Gerar.  Numbers 34, Ezekiel 47 and Ezekiel 48, all three can be difficult to interpret because of how they use place names that appear only in these three chapters, plus other aspects that are translated inconsistently.  The Lamsa translation of the Peshita version of Ezekiel seems to make Tamar and Meribah-Kadesh different names of the same location, and I think of all the versions I've read that makes the most sense in the context of other aspects of Biblical geography.

Numbers 34's use of Zin further confirms that Barnea is the same Kadesh (the Wilderness of Paran I think refers to everything west of the Arabah while the Wilderness of Zin is a more specific sub section of Paran.)  I think the reason Numbers 21 at first looks like it's saying they just arrived at a new location is because they did move slightly, but in the grand scheme of things are still on the same dot on a map of Jordan small enough to fit on my Labtop's computer screen.

So all three of these chapters place Kadesh on or very near the eastern edge of the Southern Border.  While the Western part of the border is the Wadi al-Arish.  Kadesh as I've already argued is Petra in Jordan.  The name Beersheba is not introduced till Genesis 21 but it's still implied to be pretty much where Abraham and Sarah settled at the start of chapter 20.  So the information in those chapters of Genesis combined with other references to Kadesh and Paran further support Beersheba being close to the same latitude as Kadesh.  And also about halfway between Kadesh and the Egyptian border.

Frankly I currently think Avdat is about where Beersheba should be.  The ruins at Avdat standing today (you can see them in the 73 film version of Jesus Christ Superstar) are Nabataean ruins contemporary with the Greco-Roman period, as is the name Avdat itself.  Biblical Beersheba I do not expect to have been a bustling Metropolis, it was probably a pretty humble village with no major buildings, the construction of Nabatean Avdat could easily have eliminated whatever remains older Beersheba had.  Avdat did have a Well which was the water source of it's Roman Bathhouse.

Avdat was an important stop on the road connecting Gaza to Petra. That fits pretty well with the picture I've painted above of the relationship between Beersheba and Kadesh.

Then I learned about Shivta, another city on that trade same route who's name actually seems connected to Beersheba's original name in Genesis 26:33 and Joshua 19:2.  

I now think Beersheba was in the area of either Shivta/Sobota/Subeita, Ruheiba (which seems to have the most notable Well in the area according to Dan Gibson) or Elusa.  And that Avdat/Obodat to their south was the ancient settlement of Abida son of Midian.

A Third Jewish Temple was built in the 7th Century

I have been looking into theories about reconstructing the history of the 7th Century and the origins of Islam.  I however do believe the traditional Biography of Muhammad is fairly grounded in real history, unlike Jay Smith.

And the thesis I shall provide here doesn't even matter much to if the early Arab Empire was already distinctly "Muslim" or not, my theories on that I get into elsewhere.  This is just specifically about what they did on The Temple Mount.

The current Dome of the Rock and Al Aqsa Mosque were both originally built by Abd al-Malik the third Umayyad Caliph between 690 and 705 AD, that's pretty indisputably agreed on by everyone.  The question of whether or not the Arabs built some kind of earlier Mosque on the Temple Mount is difficult to answer since everything written on the subject from the Muslim POV is centuries later, including that account of Umar and Sophronius which many Gihon Spring Temple location supporters misunderstand.

There are however some contemporary 7th Century Christian sources, and one Jewish source.  Here is a link quoting a number of them gathered together by Hoyland in 1997.

http://www.christianorigins.com/islamrefs.html [Update: https://web.archive.org/web/20210211093519/http://www.christianorigins.com/islamrefs.html]

There are Four primarily I want to quote, but first let me provide some context.

Byzantine Christians of Late Antiquity, and probably all the other mainstream types of Christians who existed at that time, on the subject of the possibly of a Third Jewish Temple being built had the exact opposite opinion of modern Dispensationalist Evangelicals.  They not only weren't expecting it but they believed God would never allow it.  So if they saw it happening they would have to either deny it, or interpret it as inherently negative.  Like how today many Anti-Semitic Post Tribbers pretty much believe the Third Temple itself will be the Abomination of Desolation.

Meanwhile I have on my other Blog documented that the Quran is actually a Zionist book, it affirms Israel's right to the Promised Land and expects their return.  The parts that seem Anti-Semitic exist in the context of the Arabs' conflict with Jews living in Arabia.  I believe Muhammad probably never intended his united Arab state to expand west of the Jordan River (or East/North of the Euphrates for that matter).  None the less when Umar did conquer Judea, even under the most traditional view of what happened he allowed The Jews to live in Jerusalem again after 500 years of Rome (both Pagan and Christian) banning them from the city.

Also on the use of the word "Mosque" in these passages, if that even is an accurate translation.  It should be remembered that in the Quran itself the word Mosque does not mean the specific type of Muslim worship building we're used to today, but rather just means a Sacred site.  The most popular interpretation of the Night Journey Sura is that the "Farthest Mosque" is the site of the Temple in Jerusalem even though no building of any kind stood there at the time.

So let's start with the witness of Sophronius the Patriarch of Jerusalem who died in 638 AD.

[In a work originally composed by John Moschus (d. 619), but expanded by Sophronius (d. ca. 639), actually found only in an addition of the Georgian translation, the following entry appears, concerning a construction dated by tradition at 638, i.e., soon after the capture of Jerusalem ca. 637. It appears in a portion concerning Sophronius as recounted on the authority of his contemporary, the archdeacon Theodore, and may have been written down ca. 670.]

the godless Saracens entered the holy city of Christ our Lord, Jerusalem, with the permission of God and in punishment for our negligence, which is considerable, and immediately proceeded in haste to the place which is called the Capitol. They took with them men, some by force, others by their own will, in order to clean that place and to build that cursed thing, intended for their prayer and which they call a mosque (midzgitha). (Pratum spirituale, 100-102 [p. 63])

I notice how hostile the Christians are to their Arab conquerors seems to depend on their sect of Christianity, the "Nestorians" like Ishoyahb and John bar Pankaye got along with them just fine.  At any rate this reference doesn't tell us much about what's being built, but by "the Capitol" he almsot certainly means the City's highest peak, The Temple Mount, after all Hadrian's Temple bult there was called the Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus.

The second reference shall be the Coptic Apocalypse of Pseudo-Shenute from about 644 AD.

The Persians . . . will go down to Egypt and much killing will accompany them. They shall seize the wealth of the Egyptians and sell their children for gold, so harsh is the persecution and oppression of the Persians. Many masters will become slaves and many slaves masters. Woe to Egypt on account of the Persians. Many masters will become slaves and many slaves masters. Woe to Egypt on account of the Persians, for they will take the church vessels and drink wine from them before the altar without fear or anxiety. They will rape the women before their husbands. There shall be great distress and anguish, and of those that survive a third will die of grief and misery.

Then after a while the Persians will depart from Egypt and there shall arise the Deceiver, who will enter upon the king of the Romans and will be entrusted by him with headship of both the military commanders and the bishops. He shall enter Egypt and undertake many tasks; he shall take possession of Egypt and its provinces, and build ditches and forts, and order that the walls of the towns in the deserts and wastelands be [re-]built. He shall destroy the East and the West, then he shall combat the pastor, the archbishop in Alexandria entrusted with the Christians resident in the land of Egypt. They will expel him and he will flee southwards until he arrives, sad and dispirited, at your monastery. And when he comes here, I shall return him and place him on his seat once more.

After that shall arise the sons of Ishmael and the sons of Esau, who hound the Christians, and the rest of them will be concerned to prevail over and rule all the world and to [re-]build the Temple that is in Jerusalem. When that happens, know that the end of times approaches and is near. The Jews will expect the Deceiver and will be ahead of the [other] peoples when he comes. When you see the [abomination of] desolation of which the prophet Daniel spoke standing in the holy place, [know that] they are those who deny the pains which I received upon the cross and who move freely about my church, fearing nothing at all. (Ps.-Shenute, Vision, 340-41 [pp. 280-281])

Since the King of the Romans here is certainly Heraclius, my first instinct was that the "Deceiver" being referred to was Sergius Patriarch of Constantinople being condemned for the Monothelite controversy, but the Coptic perspective made me doubt that.  Since the author would have considered Benjamin I the legitimate Bishop of Alexandria this Deceiver could fit Cyrus of Alexandria who was indeed given both Ecclesiastical and Military authority in Egypt.  John of Niku was another Egyptian of the period who tied his hostility towards Cyrus into how he talked about the Arab conquest.

The last detail of that account could sound like it's saying the Arabs of this time already said Jesus didn't die on The Cross.  But in the context of how Divine Impassability was what largely drove Nestorius to develop his view of the Incarnation, this could make sense to me as a criticism of Nestorianism.  Just as Ishoyahb III saying "those who say that God, Lord of all, suffered and died" is a Nestorian criticism of Cyrilian Christianity and not opposition to the doctrine of the Crucifixion or Incarnation.  

Arculf a pilgrim from the 670s.

In that famous place where once stood the magnificently constructed Temple, near the eastern wall, the Saracens now frequent a rectangular house of prayer which they have built in a crude manner, constructing it from raised planks and large beams over some remains of ruins. This house can, as it is said, accomodate at least 3000 people. (Adomnan, De locis sanctis 1.1.14.186 [p. 221])

However the most crucial witness to my theory is the Jewish one, Simon bar Yohai in the 680s.

The second king who arises from Ishmael will be a lover of Israel. He restores their breaches and the breaches of the Temple. He hews Mount Moriah, makes it level and builds a mosque (hishtahawaya) there on the Temple rock, as it is said: "Your nest is set in the rock." (Simon ben Yohai, Secrets, 79 [p. 311])

Not only did some Christians see this as a rebuilding of the Temple from a hostile POV, but Jews also celebrated it as a rebuilding of The Temple.  Meanwhile the Rectangular shape shows this was being built more like Solomon's Temple then like the Octagonal Dome we see there now.

This witness has actually effected my opinion on the Dome of the Rock being the Temple Site.  Having a Jewish pre Dome of the Rock witness to The Temple being on a Rock really lessens how unlikely I found that possibility previously.

Still technically it is the Al Aqsa Mosque that is in it's name claiming to be the "Farthest Mosque" of the Night Journey.  And the Crusaders called that Mosque the Temple of Solomon and the Dome of the Rock the Temple of The Lord.

However archeologically we know that where the Al Aqsa Mosque is was Herod's southern expansion of The Temple complex, the Royal Stoa, so the least likely place on the Mount for the The Temple itself to have been.

The Geography of Sinai and Kadesh

This is not the first post I've made on that subject.  I have for various reasons become more interested in Kadesh then Sinai.  That includes the extent to which the Wandering in the Wilderness has typological significance to aspects of the End Times.

Among people trying to argue for alternatives to the traditional site of Mt Sinai, those who are merely moving it further north in the peninsula still accept the traditional sites of Kadesh-Barnea and Paran and everything else just about.  But I feel you can't make the argument that the traditional Sinai is based on probably wrong European guesses but keep all the others, because those identifications came even later and are derived from that Sinai location. 

It really doesn't matter that you think they aren't compatible with each other, the people who first choose current Barnea either didn't consider the 11 days verse from Deuteronomy, or had reasons for thinking it fit just fine.  I've seen people specifically argue for the 11 days journey fitting locations even further apart, so I frankly am uninterested in using that as an argument at all.

Frankly I suspect even Empress Helena gets too much credit/blame, I think a lot of what's attributed to her is more folklore then history.  I do think she went to Jerusalem and played a role in choosing the Church of the Holy Sepulture, but I have my doubts she went down to those remote parts of the Sinai.

Paran is a good one to start with.  Both Eusebius and Jerome place Paran in Arabia Deserta.  That is a lot more specific then just saying Arabia, that is a precise Roman Geographical term for the Arabian Desert that was distinct from and between Arabia Petraea/Nabataea and Arabia Felix(Yemen).

This witness to Paran being in Arabia Deserta has been used to support the Paran of Hagar and Ishmael being the Hejaz and Mecca, but most Biblical evidence places the Ishmaelite Tribes in or very near modern Jordan.  Mecca and Medina/Yathrib are south even of most lands associated with the sons of Keturah, though Josephus says her sons were settled in Arabia Felix which is basically Yemen.

Contrary to what some Jabal el-Lawz enthusiasts will tell you, Arabia in antiquity did sometimes include the Sinai Peninsula.  But the basis for that is mostly the Sinai being part of the Roman Province of Arabia Petraea which before Trajan conquered it was the Nabataean Kingdom.  The Sinai was also known to have been inhabited by Qedarites in the 5th Century BC.  

Biblical support for a Trans-Jordan Paran begins with Genesis 14 where El-Paran and Kadesh are associated with Seir and the Horites and various other obscure tribes that later Torah passages associate with the lands of Edom, Moab and Ammon.  And that is further backed up by the very first verse of Deuteronomy.

I'm not entirely decided on if I think Kadesh-Barnea and Kadesh-Meribah are the same location, but at this moment I lean towards them being the same, since both have equally valid reasons for being placed in Jordan.  It could be possible they are sperate specific encampments but still close enough that a modern city could encompass both.

Kadesh-Meribah is used in Ezekiel 47:19 and 48:28 as a marker for Israel's southern border.  Basically you're supposed to draw an east-west line from Kadesh-Meribah to a river that flows into the Mediterranean Sea (probably the Wādī al-ʻArīsh).  That supports it being a location on or very near the border between Israel and Jordan.

Josephus in Antiquities of The Jews Book 4 Chapter 4 Section 7 identifies Petra as a Metropolis of the Arabs and as where Aaron died.  Now strictly speaking that is Biblically Hor not Kadesh-Meribah.  However the area of Petra includes sites locally identified with everything in Numbers 20.  It's possible that at one time this was not all considered one city.  Numbers 20 implies Kadesh is on the King's Highway which fits Petra but not the traditional location.

All that is how I was thinking about the Josephus reference.  Now I know that the Petra linked Mount Hor is technically South West of Petra proper.  Since Numbers 20:21 says they turned away from Edom when they went to Hor that can fit the city of Kadesh being North of Hor.  It still seems weird that Josephus didn't mention the name of Petra sooner.

Kadesh and Hor were not under Edom's control at the time of Moses but are near Edom's border according to both Numbers 20 and Josephus.  But Petra did become Edomite for awhile later during the Kingdom period being the city known as Cela/Sela/Selah in 2 Kings 14:7 and Isaiah 16:1, but also sometimes simply translated Rock in Obadiah verse 3 and Jeremiah 49:16.  Cela is a city also named in the Amarna Letters and is in fact the Semitic equivalent of the Greek Petra.

This Hebrew word for Rock first appears in The Bible in Numbers 20 verses 8, 10 and 11, being used of the Rock Moses stuck.  The first Meribah incident in Exodus 17 at Rephidim where Moses did what he was supposed to do uses different words for rock/stone, cagal in verse 4 and tswur in verse 6.  So is it possible the use of this word for rock is circumstantial evidence we are in the future Edomite Cela?

[Apparently the Petra=Sela assumption is outdated, Edomtie Sela is now identified as a place further north.  I still think Moses using this word for Rock here and not at Rephidim could reflect this location being the same mountain range and thus same kinds of rocks.  Petra being on the King's Highway but to the South of Edom arguably fits Kadesh of Numbers 20 even better.  Isaiah 42:11 does refer to a Cela being inhabited by Kedar.]

Numbers 13 places Kadesh-Barnea in Paran.  Genesis 21:21 identifies Paran as where Hagar raised Ishmael.  And I feel it's reasonably implied Hagar returned to the same location as her earlier temporary exile from Genesis 16:14, the well between Kadesh and Bered.

Petra as Kadesh lends credence to the Petra was the original Mecca theory of Dan Gibson which I've discussed in a few posts on a different blog already.  What Mecca claims to be Biblically is basically the Kadesh and Paran of these verses of Genesis.  Though there is still no Biblical support for Abraham building a House of Worship there, he only did that at future Israelite locations, Shechem, Bethel and Mamre near Hebron.  However the meaning of the name Kadesh suggests it was considered Sacred by someone.

Of course Kadesh could be one of a number of Genesis place names that appear as an editorial decision from Moses and not names already used at that time.  A Samaritan source known as Sharḥ al-Asāṭīr claims that Mecca was build by the sons of Nabojath (Nabateans).

Sinai I do now lean towards placing in the Sinai Peninsula.  It being described by Josephus as "between Egypt and Arabia" best fits that location, yet is also consistent with being sometimes placed in Arabia because it was part of the Roman Province and the Nabataean kingdom.

That said what Paul says in Galatians I don't even think we should consider geographically useful.   Paul is using Sinai as a symbol, and his association of Sinai with Hagar suggests he's combing Sinai and Kadesh of Paran in his symbolism.  However if both were part of the Domain of Aretas when Paul was writing that makes his fusing them together as both Hagarene work.

I find it amusing when Jabal El-Lawz proponents use Josephus calling Sinai the largest mountain in the area against Jebel Musa and then talk about how tall their mountain is.  When Mount Catherine right next to Jebel Musa is taller then Jabal El-Lawz.  That said I am also interested in more northern theories.  Being the tallest in the region isn't a Biblical detail and in fact I think it's a very secular mindset that would want that to be the case, God doesn't need to prove how Big He is the way Men do.

Some people will also place Sinai in Petra, Jebel al-Madhbah (the Mountain of the Altar).  Clearly however that is too close to the Numbers 20 events I now place there.  But maybe this mountain has some importance to the Petra=Mecca theory?  Maybe it's the original Jabal al-Nour, since after all that mountain's role in Muhammad's biography tempts one to thematically compare it to Sinai.  Question is does Madhbah have a cave that could work as the Cave of Hira?  I would hope whoever first tried to convince people this was Sinai/Horeb made sure there was a cave for Elijah in 1 Kings 19:8-9?

Maybe Jebel al-Madhbah is the Mount Paran of Deuteronomy 33:2 and Habakkuk 3:3.

The only East of Aqaba location I'm currently willing to consider for Sinai is Jabal Ahmad al Baqir in southern Jordan.  It kind of perfectly fits the Deuteronomy picture of the Seir mountains being between Sinai and Kadesh-Barnea if the later is indeed Petra.  Unfortunately no one has made documentaries on this mountain and I can't find the 19th Century book that proposed it online, and Amazon has no copies at the moment.

The Catholic Empire and Protestant Rebels

Rome pulled out of England and The Netherlands in 410 AD.  

That means that when I look at the religious demographics of Western Europe, for the most part the regions that stayed Catholic following the Reformation correlates to the Western Roman Empire at the time of the Third and Fourth Ecumenical Councils.  The Western Mediterranean, Austria and Southern Germany.

Now you might feel that's awfully arbitrary, after all the major Protestant Denominations especially the Anglican Church do not reject those councils, so why choose this time period's Roman borders?

It's less about those councils per se and more the influence of Augustine of Hippo and Pope Leo I.  Augustine was active before then but his arguably single most important work, City of God, was written soon after 410.  Leo can be argued to be the first Bishop of Rome who was a "Pope" in the sense of how we think of that today.

There are some notable counter examples to this thesis.

First of all Switzerland has a significant Protestant presence as perhaps the only European Nation where the population seems pretty evenly divided between Protestant and Catholic.  Given the geographical nature of Switzerland it may be possible to argue Rome never fully subjected it regardless of it being all technically claimed by Rome.  But this is also largely the product of this country being a place that usually welcomes refugees (though some in the country sadly tainted this reputation during the most pivotal refugee crisis of the 20th Century).

For the other type of exception I'm not interested in the places outside Europe where the Catholics have a foothold because of Colonialism and/or Jesuit Missionaries.  Instead I'm interested in Ireland and Poland.

In the English speaking world I imagine it wouldn't surprise people too much to see me suggest a theory that the Irish stayed Catholic mainly out of rebellion against the British.  What might not be quite so well known is how Poland and the part of Germany that would come to be known as Prussia had a similar relationship.  Which actually factors into why Poland was where WW2 started (the European theater anyway).

All this is interesting, but there is a certain kind of Christian Racist who likes to suggest some Biological Determinism regarding who became Protestant and who didn't.  And in the English Speaking world that often ties into British Israelism or Christian Identity.  I remember a long time ago reading a website that very specifically said the Lost Tribes were those parts of Europe who embraced the Reformation.  I don't recall the full details of the argument they made, but I suspect they may have tried to get around how complicated things were in France by suggesting the Huguenots were the true descendants of the Franks and Normans while the Catholic French are the Romanized Celts.

In terms of my looking into where various Y Chromosomal Haplogroups are dominant, Wales and Brittany are more genetically like each other then either is to England or France, same with Ireland and Scotland.

British Israelism in general is a Protestant phenomenon, for all the things I feel the Catholics are wrong on at least they generally understand that The Gospel isn't ethnocentric.  There were some Catholic believers in Franco-Israelism at one point, but in origin that was more of a Huguenot thing.

The reason the Reformation wound up being so geographical is because it happened while Europe was still under Feudalism.  The average peasant didn't care about any of these nuanced theological debates and just went to whatever Church was near by.  So most regions just wound up following what their King, Duke, Prince or whatever chose to follow.  And generally speaking the further away from Rome one was, the less concerned they were with having good relations with Rome, and perhaps sometimes resented the Popes wielding so much soft power over them.

The fact is it wasn't just in England under Henry VIII that the Reformation was Top Down rather then populist.  Luther avoided the same fate as Jan Hus because he made friends with most of Northern Germany's Feudal Lords and then Gustav in Sweden, Christian III of Denmark and William the Silent's father followed suit.  Then when a bunch of Peasants started taking this opportunity to bring back some of that Communist stuff Jesus talked about, Luther immediately sided with his new Aristocratic friends and a bloody war of suppression was waged.

And it was the same with the Calvinist Reformation, Zwingli took over Zurich and Calvin took over Geneva and then basically ruled them as Demagogues.  And the foothold Protestants temporarily had in France was due to support from the Bourbons and some important Queens.

Update April 2021: I've learned that Luxemburg which is Catholic is also among what Rome had pulled out of by 410, so that's a further hole in this premise.